Summary:
Claiborne County Schools, located in rural East Tennessee near the Virginia border, includes two middle schools serving grades 5 through 8: Soldiers Memorial Middle School in Tazewell and H. Y. Livesay Middle School in Harrogate, and while the district as a whole ranks in the bottom 20% of Tennessee districts, these two schools tell very different stories.
H. Y. Livesay is the clear standout and one of the brightest spots in the district. It ranks in the 76th percentile statewide with a 4-star rating, comfortably above the state average in Science (52.6% vs. 46.9%) and Social Studies (61.4% vs. 51.4%), and near the state average in Math and ELA. Even more encouraging, Livesay students tend to build momentum as they move through middle school — 8th grade math proficiency hits 56.7% compared to just 24.2% in 5th grade. By contrast, Soldiers Memorial is a high-needs school ranking in the bottom 12% statewide with a 1-star rating, and its students lose ground every year. Proficiency drops steadily from 5th to 8th grade, falling to just 9.6% in 8th grade math and 13.3% in ELA. The only subject where Soldiers Memorial beats Livesay is 5th grade math (30.9% vs. 24.2%), but by 8th grade the gap reverses dramatically to a 47-point deficit.
Attendance and spending add important context. Chronic absenteeism at Soldiers Memorial is 25.5% — one in four students — compared to 18.4% at Livesay, which aligns closely with the achievement gap. Interestingly, Soldiers Memorial actually spends more per student ($13,107 vs. $12,580), yet produces far weaker results, suggesting that school climate, instruction, and resource allocation matter more than raw funding. For parents, Livesay is clearly the higher-performing choice with strong growth and healthy attendance, while Soldiers Memorial needs urgent attention around math, literacy, and attendance to reverse a troubling downward trend.
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