Summary:
The Bearden School District is home to a single high school, Bearden High School, which serves grades 7 through 12 in a rural Arkansas community with a total enrollment of 227 students.
Bearden High School stands out for its exceptionally low student-teacher ratio of 4.8 to 1, which allows for highly personalized instruction, and its high per-student spending of $14,138. However, the school faces significant challenges, with 98.68% of students eligible for free or reduced lunch. Despite these resources, academic proficiency on the ATLAS tests is well below state averages across nearly all subjects. For example, only 23.1% of students are proficient in English Language Arts compared to the state average of 39.4%, and just 20.4% are proficient in Science versus 44.0% statewide. The most critical weakness is in advanced mathematics, where Geometry proficiency is at 0% and Algebra proficiency is only 17%.
Interestingly, the school achieves a graduation rate of 92.8%, which is above the state average of 90.1%, and a very low dropout rate of 0.8%. This creates a paradox where the school successfully helps students complete high school but struggles to bring them to grade-level academic mastery. The school has consistently received a 1-star rating and ranks in the bottom 20% of Arkansas high schools, with its ranking fluctuating between the 15th and 25th percentiles over the past three years. The data suggests that while the low student-teacher ratio and high spending are valuable assets, the school must develop targeted interventions to address deep learning gaps, particularly in math, to improve student outcomes.
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