Niota Elementary School

Niota Elementary School serves 523 students in pre-kindergarten through 8th grade in the small town of Niota, Tennessee, as part of McMinn County Schools. Despite belonging to a district that earns a 3-star rating, Niota itself is rated 1 star and ranks in the 27th percentile of Tennessee schools — well below its district and most comparable schools in the area. This is not a recent development. The school has spent most of the past decade in the lower quartile of elementary schools statewide, with its best recent year reaching only the 32nd percentile.

On the most recent TNReady assessments, Niota's proficiency rates trail both its district and the state in every subject. In math, 31.6% of students are proficient, compared to 44.1% across McMinn County and 43.0% statewide. English language arts shows the largest gap: just 26.4% of students are proficient versus 40.6% statewide. There are a few bright spots in the early grades — 4th-grade math is nearly at the state average — but performance drops sharply as students get older. Only 20% of 6th graders are proficient in math, and just 15.6% of 8th graders are proficient in ELA, both far below state averages.

The most striking comparison is with other PK-8 schools in the same district. Riceville Elementary School and E K Baker Elementary School both earn 4 stars, ranking in the 73rd and 78th percentiles respectively, while Englewood Elementary School earns 2 stars. Niota ranks lowest of the four, and its test scores lag more than its spending would suggest — Niota spends more per student than Riceville or Englewood yet sees weaker results. One genuine strength is attendance: Niota's chronic absenteeism rate of 11.9% is well below the district rate of 15.3% and the state rate of 18.3%. That improvement has not yet translated into higher test scores, so the school's next step will likely be focusing on instruction and academic support in the middle grades.