Matthews Elementary School

Matthews Elementary School in Pine Bluff, AR, serves 367 students in grades K-6 and is part of the Pine Bluff School District, a district facing significant challenges in a high-poverty area where 100% of students qualify for free or reduced lunch.

While Matthews Elementary has consistently ranked in the bottom tier of Arkansas elementary schools, there are some encouraging signs. The school has shown steady improvement over the past three years in core subjects like English Language Arts (from 10.1% to 19.2% proficiency) and Math (from 8.0% to 15.3% proficiency). A notable bright spot is the 6th grade, which achieved the highest proficiency rates across all subjects in the 2025-2026 school year, including 25.5% in ELA and 21.5% in Math. This suggests potential strength in upper-grade instruction. The school also spends a relatively high $15,830 per student, likely to address the intense non-academic needs of its student body, and maintains a reasonable student-teacher ratio of 15.2:1.

Comparing Matthews to nearby schools reveals stark contrasts. In the neighboring White Hall School District, schools like Moody Elementary and Gandy Elementary achieve proficiency rates 2-3 times higher, with Gandy reaching 49.7% in Math. However, an interesting outlier is Friendship Aspire Academy Downtown Pine Bluff, a charter school in the same high-poverty area that achieved 79% proficiency in Math and 57.9% in ELA, suggesting that school model and leadership can overcome some socioeconomic barriers. Within the Pine Bluff district, Matthews performs on par with or slightly better than peers like Southwood Elementary and Broadmoor Elementary, but the overall district performance remains well below state averages.