Newport City Schools

Newport City Schools is a single-school district in eastern Tennessee, home to just one campus: Newport Grammar School, which serves grades PK through 8 with 730 students. Because the district contains only this one school, every district-level figure mirrors the school’s performance exactly. The district itself ranks 29th out of 141 districts in Tennessee (79th percentile, 4 stars), while the school currently holds a 3-star rating and ranks 421st out of 1,019 schools — a drop from its 4-star status in each of the previous two years.

Newport Grammar School presents a mixed picture. It outperforms the state in English Language Arts (48.8% vs. 40.6%), Science (60.3% vs. 46.9%), and Social Studies (68.9% vs. 51.4%), but lags in Mathematics (37.3% vs. 43.0%). The most striking contrast comes in math: 8th graders post a 69.9% proficiency rate, nearly double the state average of 38.3%, while 6th graders manage only 12.3% proficiency versus a 40.1% state average — a 27.8-point gap. That dramatic difference suggests a serious challenge at the middle-school transition, though the school clearly makes up ground by 8th grade. Other bright spots include 7th grade social studies (78.9% vs. 56.0%) and 6th grade ELA (60.3% vs. 39.8%).

Across the board, proficiency declined from 2024-2025 to 2025-2026, led by a 5.0-point drop in math that pushed the school below the state average. These declines likely explain the fall from 4 to 3 stars. Chronic absenteeism is essentially average at 18.4%, and spending per student is $11,989, though no comparative efficiency data is available. Since free/reduced lunch and student-teacher ratio are not reported, socioeconomic context is limited. Overall, Newport Grammar School is a high performer in ELA, Science, and Social Studies with an exceptional 8th grade math cohort, but the severe 6th grade math weakness and recent across-the-subject declines mean the school must focus on math instruction — especially around the middle-school transition — to regain its previous standing.