Summary:
In zip code 71837, there is one middle school, Paulette Smith Middle School, serving grades 6 through 8 in the Fouke School District, a rural area with 244 students and a high percentage (66%) from low-income households.
Paulette Smith Middle School shows a mixed academic profile. Its strongest area is mathematics, where 6th and 7th graders scored above the state average in 2025-2026 (47.2% and 47.7% proficient, respectively). However, the school struggles with literacy, consistently underperforming the state in English Language Arts and Reading across all grades. A notable anomaly is Algebra performance: in 2024-2025, the school achieved an exceptional 68.2% proficiency rate, more than double the state average, but this plummeted to just 25% in 2025-2026, well below the state average of 36.9%. This extreme swing warrants investigation into possible curriculum changes or cohort differences.
Despite a favorable student-to-teacher ratio of 10.1:1, which typically supports individualized instruction, the school's state ranking has declined significantly from the 62nd percentile (3-star) in 2023-2024 to the 38th percentile (2-star) in 2025-2026. An "8th-grade slump" is evident, as 8th graders fall behind state averages in both math (29.4% vs. 36.2%) and science (36.3% vs. 42.9%), while 6th and 7th graders perform near or above state levels. This pattern suggests a need for targeted interventions to support students transitioning to more advanced middle school content, especially given the high poverty rate's potential impact on learning outcomes.
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