Summary:
The Prescott School District is home to a single high school, Prescott High School, which serves grades 9 through 12 with 296 students in a small, rural Arkansas community where 100% of students are economically disadvantaged.
Prescott High School presents a mixed picture of notable strengths and significant challenges. On the positive side, the school boasts an exceptionally low student-teacher ratio of 6.2:1, which allows for small classes and personalized attention. It also maintains a strong graduation rate of 92.6%, which is above the state average of 90.1%. However, academic proficiency on state tests is very low, with only 20.3% of students proficient in English Language Arts and a critically low 8.4% in Geometry, compared to state averages of 39.4% and 26.4%, respectively. The school ranks 245th out of 293 schools in Arkansas, placing it in the 16th percentile.
There are some encouraging signs of improvement. Test scores have shown a clear upward trend from the previous year, with Algebra proficiency more than doubling from 10.4% to 21.6%. This suggests recent instructional changes may be starting to work. The biggest takeaway is the "proficiency paradox": the school is very effective at keeping students on track to graduate, but struggles to bring them to grade-level mastery in core subjects. Geometry is a particular weak point, with only 8.4% of students proficient, indicating a need for targeted intervention in that subject. The district itself is ranked in the bottom 10% of all Arkansas districts, suggesting these challenges are systemic across all grade levels.
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