Rison Elementary School

Rison Elementary School in Rison, AR, serves 427 students from Pre-K through 6th grade and is part of the Cleveland County School District, which ranks in the top 63rd percentile of Arkansas districts. The school has maintained a consistent 3-star rating for nearly a decade, making it a stable and above-average choice in a region where many nearby schools struggle significantly.

Rison Elementary stands out for its strong academic performance compared to its neighbors. In English Language Arts, the school's proficiency rate of 46.6% is nearly 2.5 times higher than the average of nearby schools, and its reading proficiency of 50.5% is more than double that average. While math proficiency (40.8%) is slightly below the state average, it still far exceeds the roughly 25% average of peer schools like Coleman Elementary School and Thirty-Fourth Street Elementary School. The school also demonstrates impressive fiscal efficiency, spending $12,200 per student—significantly less than schools with similar poverty rates like Fordyce Elementary Schools ($20,358) and Friendship Aspire Academy Hazel St Pine Bluff ($17,582)—while achieving far better results. However, a notable concern is a sharp drop in 5th-grade performance, particularly in math (27.1% proficient) and science (33.9%), suggesting a need for targeted intervention at that grade level.

An interesting local comparison is with Woodlawn Elementary School, located just 8.45 miles away in the same town. Woodlawn outperforms Rison in nearly every subject, especially math (63.6% vs. 40.8%), despite having lower spending per student ($10,293) and a lower poverty rate. This makes Woodlawn a direct benchmark for what even greater success could look like. Overall, Rison Elementary is a solid, efficient school that provides a dramatically better educational option than the struggling schools in nearby Pine Bluff School District and Watson Chapel School District, but it must address its 5th-grade slump to continue improving.