Summary:
The Pea Ridge School District in Arkansas serves approximately 2,670 students across five schools: Pea Ridge Primary School, Pea Ridge Intermediate School, Pea Ridge Middle School, Pea Ridge Junior High School, and Pea Ridge High School, earning a 3-star district rating.
Pea Ridge Middle School (grades 5-6) is the district's academic powerhouse, consistently outperforming state averages in all subjects, with a standout 73.7% proficiency in 6th-grade math versus the state's 45.1%. This success occurs despite having the largest class sizes (21.9:1 student-teacher ratio) and being the second-lowest spender per student. In contrast, Pea Ridge Junior High School (grades 7-9) shows a dramatic split: it excels in advanced courses like Geometry (72.4% proficient vs. 26.4% state) and Biology (75.3% vs. 42.7% state), but struggles with general education, particularly 8th-grade math where only 24.2% of students are proficient. This suggests a "two-tiered" environment where top students thrive while average students may lack support.
Pea Ridge High School (grades 10-12) presents a contradiction: it boasts the district's highest graduation rate at 94.7% (well above the state's 90.1%) and the lowest dropout rate at 0.8%, yet it is the only school scoring below state averages in core subjects like Geometry (11.7% vs. 26.4%) and Biology (33.6% vs. 42.7%). Notably, spending does not correlate with performance—the high school spends the most per student ($13,869) but achieves the lowest test scores, while the top-performing middle school spends only $10,309 per student. The district also shows a clear performance drop between middle and junior high school, indicating a potential transition problem where strong elementary foundations are not effectively built upon in later grades.
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