Izard County Consolidated Elementary School

Izard County Consolidated Elementary School in Violet Hill, AR, is a small, rural school serving 286 students from Pre-Kindergarten through 4th grade, and it is part of the Izard County Consolidated School District.

This school faces a significant challenge: nearly all of its students (98.95%) come from economically disadvantaged backgrounds, the highest rate in the area. While the school spends more per student ($16,602) than any nearby school, its overall academic performance is lower than many peers. However, there is a bright spot in 4th-grade math, where 64.3% of students are proficient—a rate that beats the state average and outperforms nearby schools like Calico Rock Elementary School (35.5%) and Salem Elementary School (55.8%). The biggest struggle is in reading and English Language Arts (ELA), where proficiency rates (around 32%) are the lowest among all comparison schools and well below state averages. This creates a large gap between math and literacy skills that the school needs to address.

Interestingly, Calico Rock Elementary School is a very similar school—with nearly identical poverty levels and enrollment—yet it outperforms Izard County in every subject, especially in ELA (48.6% vs. 32.9%). This suggests that with the right strategies, better results are possible even under challenging circumstances. The school’s high spending likely goes toward support services for its high-needs students, but the key takeaway for parents is that while math instruction is a clear strength, literacy instruction needs significant improvement. The Izard County Consolidated School District overall ranks higher than the elementary school alone, indicating that the middle or high school may be performing better.