Summary:
This analysis examines four elementary schools in the 72601 zip code (Harrison, Arkansas), serving students from Kindergarten through 4th grade, with one school also offering Pre-Kindergarten, and all located within two highly-rated districts: the Harrison School District and the Bergman School District.
The standout school is Forest Heights Elementary School, which is the highest-performing school in the area, ranking 33rd in the state with top proficiency rates in English, Reading, and Science. The most improved school is Skyline Heights Elementary School, which jumped an impressive 77 spots in state ranking in a single year. Bergman Elementary School is a consistent high performer, achieving the highest single-subject proficiency rate in the dataset with 70.9% in Mathematics. Harrison Kindergarten is unique as it exclusively serves Kindergarten students, making direct academic comparisons with the other schools impossible, but it benefits from the lowest student-to-teacher ratio (12:1).
A key takeaway is that all four schools serve a population where roughly two-thirds of students are economically disadvantaged, yet they perform exceptionally well, with the two main elementary schools ranking in the top 17% of all Arkansas elementary schools. There is a notable spending paradox: Forest Heights, the highest-ranked school, has the highest per-student spending ($16,413), while Skyline Heights, the most improved, has the second-lowest spending ($11,229), suggesting that dramatic improvement is not solely dependent on high financial input. Mathematics is a clear strength across the zip code, with all three tested schools scoring 23 to 28 percentage points above the state average. Finally, while the Harrison School District is ranked higher than the Bergman School District, Bergman Elementary actually ranks higher than Skyline Heights, showing that a top-tier district does not guarantee every school within it outperforms schools from a slightly lower-ranked district.
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