Summary:
The Russellville School District in Arkansas is home to two middle-level schools serving grades 5 through 7: Russellville Intermediate School (Grade 5 only) and Russellville Middle School (Grades 6-7). Both schools have shown remarkable improvement in math and science over the past year, with the district earning a 3-star rating overall.
Russellville Intermediate School stands out as the top performer, achieving the highest proficiency rates in the district for mathematics (58.9%) and science (58.7%) in the 2025-2026 school year. This is particularly impressive given that it spends less per student ($10,719) and has larger class sizes (15.4:1) compared to Russellville Middle School, which spends $12,170 per student with a 13.3:1 ratio. The Intermediate School also posted strong year-over-year gains, surging roughly 12 percentage points in both math and science. Meanwhile, Russellville Middle School made the largest percentage-point gains overall, improving by 11 to 14 points across all subjects, and earned a 4-star rating in 2025-2026 after ranking 81st in the state.
A key finding is the "5th grade advantage," as 5th graders at the Intermediate School outperform their 6th and 7th-grade peers in nearly every subject. However, a notable concern emerges within Russellville Middle School: 7th-grade math proficiency drops to 48.1%, a full 10 percentage points lower than 6th-grade math (58.1%). This suggests a potential "middle school slump" that warrants attention. Both schools serve a high percentage of economically disadvantaged students (around 63-66% free/reduced lunch), yet their academic trajectories are diverging, with the Intermediate School leading in overall performance while the Middle School shows the fastest rate of improvement.
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