Summary:
Zip code 72732 is home to a single school, Garfield Scholars Academy, a small public elementary school in Garfield, Arkansas, serving 73 students in grades Kindergarten through 5th grade as part of the Garfield Scholars' Academy district.
This school presents a fascinating academic profile with clear strengths and areas for growth. The most notable finding is a sharp divide in performance: the school excels in STEM subjects, particularly in 4th grade where 60% of students are proficient in both Mathematics and Science, significantly outperforming state averages. Overall, the school's Mathematics proficiency (45.6%) and Science proficiency (44.5%) are slightly above the state average. However, the school struggles in English Language Arts and Reading, where proficiency rates (32.6% for both) fall 6-8 percentage points below the state average. With a low student-teacher ratio of 10.4:1 and a free/reduced lunch rate of 39.73%, the school has the structural advantage of small class sizes, which appears to be leveraged effectively for math and science instruction but has not yet yielded similar results in literacy.
Perhaps the most encouraging takeaway is the school's dramatic year-over-year improvement. From the 2024-2025 to the 2025-2026 school year, Mathematics proficiency jumped from 27% to 45.6% (an 18.6-point gain), and Science proficiency rose from 27% to 44.5% (a 17.5-point gain). Even the lower-performing ELA and Reading areas saw gains of 5.6 and 8.3 points, respectively. This exceptional turnaround suggests effective interventions or curriculum changes are being implemented. The school is ranked 214th out of 491 elementary schools in Arkansas (56th percentile, 3 stars), and its district ranks 107th out of 251 districts. For parents, this is a small school on a strong upward trajectory, with a primary challenge being to bring its literacy scores in line with its impressive math and science performance.
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