Bald Knob School District

The Bald Knob School District in Arkansas is a small, unified district serving approximately 1,059 students across three schools: H.L. Lubker Elementary School (grades K-5), Bald Knob Middle School (grades 6-8), and Bald Knob High School (grades 9-12). The district ranks 143rd out of 251 in Arkansas, earning a 2-star rating, and faces significant economic challenges with an average free/reduced lunch rate of 58.8%.

Bald Knob High School is the district's standout performer, earning a 3-star rating and dramatically improving its state rank from the 40th to the 52nd percentile. It boasts a strong 93.6% graduation rate, exceeding the state average, and excels with 9th graders in English and Reading, where proficiency rates (59.7% and 62.7%) far surpass state averages. However, the school faces a critical weakness in Biology, with only 11.1% of students proficient compared to the state's 42.7%, and a sharp decline in 10th-grade scores. In contrast, Bald Knob Middle School is a math powerhouse, with an 80% Algebra I proficiency rate—more than double the state average of 36.9%—though its overall rank is average at the 43rd percentile.

H.L. Lubker Elementary School serves as the district's consistent foundation, outperforming the state average in mathematics (45.2% vs. 44.1%) despite having the highest poverty rate (66.3% free/reduced lunch) and the largest student-teacher ratio (15.2:1). Its 4th-grade math proficiency of 61.2% is a full 14.2 points above the state average. A key takeaway is the extreme disparity in Algebra performance: the middle school excels with advanced students, while the high school struggles with later Algebra takers (24.2% proficiency). The district spends an average of $12,076 per student, with the high school enjoying a very low student-teacher ratio of 5.8:1.