Summary:
Zip code 38574 is served by two public schools within the Putnam County Schools district: Monterey High School, serving grades 7–12 with 526 students, and Burks Elementary School, serving grades PK–6 with 515 students. There is no standalone middle school in the area, so Monterey also serves seventh- and eighth-graders in a high school environment. Putnam County Schools ranks 56th out of 141 districts in Tennessee, earning a 3-star rating.
Monterey High School presents a mixed profile. Its strongest results are in middle-grade math and science: 8th-grade math proficiency is 58.2% versus the state's 38.3%, 8th-grade Algebra I proficiency is 90%, and Geometry is 54.8% versus the state's 42.3%. However, high school coursework tells a different story. English I proficiency is just 23% versus the state's 37.3%, Biology I sits at 32.6% versus the district's 52.4%, and Algebra II is 31.2%. Burks Elementary School, meanwhile, is a solid option with strong mathematics (53.4% all-grades proficiency) and standout social studies, reaching 61.8% in 2024-25. Its 3rd-grade ELA is strong at 54.4%, but 5th-grade ELA proficiency is just 22.1% — more than 20 points below the state average of 42.7%.
Both schools have low chronic absenteeism — Monterey at 12.5% and Burks at 13.2%, below the district's 17.3% — and Monterey's dropout rate is just 1.9% versus the state's 6.7%. Yet both schools lag in English Language Arts and have seen their statewide rankings slip. Monterey fell from the 62nd percentile in 2023-24 to the 48th percentile in 2025-26, while Burks dropped from the 69th to the 61st percentile. Spending is nearly identical at about $13,500 per student at each school, yet outcomes differ by subject, suggesting instructional focus matters more than spending alone. Monterey also shows notable year-over-year test volatility — Geometry jumped from 18% to 54.8% while Biology fell from 51.8% to 32.6% — so families should look at multi-year trends rather than a single snapshot.
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