Summary:
Decatur, Arkansas is home to a single middle school, Decatur Middle School, which serves 162 students in grades 5 through 8 within the Decatur School District.
Decatur Middle School stands out for its high level of economic need, with 100% of its students eligible for free or reduced lunch. Despite this challenge, the school has shown remarkable recent academic improvement. Between the 2024-2025 and 2025-2026 school years, proficiency rates in Mathematics and Science each jumped by 11.3 percentage points, and Reading improved by 9 percentage points. This positive trend is reflected in its state ranking, which improved to 271st out of 327 schools (17th percentile) in 2025-2026. The school also maintains a favorable student-teacher ratio of 11.6:1 and spends $12,388 per student, indicating a significant investment in its students.
Despite these gains, proficiency rates in all subjects remain below state averages. For example, overall Mathematics proficiency is 25.4% compared to the state average of 44.1%. A notable exception is 8th-grade Science, where students achieved a 38.7% proficiency rate, just 4.2 percentage points below the state average. Performance varies across grades, with 5th graders scoring 34.2% in Math while 8th graders scored 20.7%. This inconsistency suggests that while the school is on an upward trajectory, it continues to face significant challenges in bringing all students to grade-level proficiency.
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