Summary:
The De Queen School District in Arkansas is home to two elementary schools serving students from kindergarten through fifth grade: Dequeen Elementary School (grades 3-5) and Dequeen Primary (grades K-2).
Dequeen Elementary School stands out for its strong academic performance, consistently earning a 4-star rating and exceeding both district and state averages in all core subjects. Its mathematics proficiency rate of 59.4% is particularly impressive, outpacing the state average by over 15 percentage points. The school also showed remarkable year-over-year growth, with reading proficiency jumping nearly 10 points. This is especially noteworthy given that over 80% of its students come from low-income families, demonstrating effective teaching and support systems. In contrast, Dequeen Primary focuses on foundational learning for younger students without standardized testing pressure, and it offers a slightly lower student-teacher ratio of 14.3:1 compared to 16.4:1 at the upper elementary school.
Both schools serve nearly identical enrollments (around 555-558 students) and have high free/reduced lunch rates (79-82%). The district invests slightly more per student at Dequeen Elementary School ($12,305 vs. $11,683), likely to support specialized resources for tested grades. The strong performance at the upper elementary level suggests that Dequeen Primary effectively prepares students for academic success, creating a cohesive pipeline of achievement across the district.
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