Summary:
The Arkadelphia School District is served by a single middle school, Goza Middle School, which enrolls 560 students in grades 5 through 8 and has a student-teacher ratio of 14.9.
Goza Middle School shows a mixed performance profile. The school’s most notable strength is in advanced math: 77.5% of 8th graders taking Algebra were proficient in the 2025-2026 school year, far exceeding the state average of 36.9%. However, overall proficiency in core subjects lags behind state averages, with only 33.5% of students proficient in English Language Arts, 32.7% in Reading, 28.7% in Mathematics, and 37.1% in Science. The school’s state ranking has been volatile, dropping from the 54th percentile in 2023-2024 to the 38th percentile (2 stars) in 2025-2026. A bright spot is 6th grade, which outperformed the state in English Language Arts (41.2% vs. 40.8%) and Science (43.8% vs. 42.5%). Conversely, 5th and 8th grades are areas of concern, particularly in Mathematics, where only 23% of 5th graders and 23.8% of 8th graders were proficient.
Despite spending $10,922 per student and having nearly 60% of students from economically disadvantaged backgrounds, the school’s resources have not yet translated into above-average outcomes in most subjects. Encouragingly, year-over-year data shows improvement from 2024-2025 to 2025-2026 in English Language Arts (26.6% to 33.5%), Reading (29% to 32.7%), and Science (29.6% to 37.1%), suggesting recent changes may be having a positive impact. The stark contrast between the high Algebra proficiency and low standard 8th-grade math proficiency (23.8%) indicates the school successfully accelerates a select group of students while the majority struggle with grade-level math.
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