Original Research by School Decision on Centerville R-i
Centerville R-I is a small, rural school district in Reynolds County that serves children from kindergarten through eighth grade. Because the district ends at grade eight, there is no high school and therefore no graduation rate to report. Families who remain in the district after eighth grade must make arrangements for high school elsewhere, likely in a neighboring district or through a transfer option.
The district operates a single school, Centerville Elementary, which housed all enrolled students. The total enrollment is very small, with students spread across each grade from kindergarten through eighth grade. Every grade has just a handful of students, and in some grades the number is in the single digits. Every student in the district is reported as White, with no racial or ethnic diversity recorded in the enrollment data. Information on the share of students who qualify for free or reduced-price meals, students with disabilities, and English learners was not available in the data provided.
State testing results for the Missouri Assessment Program are reported, but all proficiency rates for math, English language arts, and science at every tested grade level were suppressed. Suppression typically occurs when the number of students tested is too small to report publicly without risking individual student identification. The data does show that very few students took each test: for example, five students took the grade seven math and English language arts tests, and six students took the grade five and grade eight tests. This means there is no way to gauge the district’s academic performance from the state’s published data. A parent should consider this a gap in available information and may want to ask the district directly about how student progress is measured and communicated.
Chronic absenteeism, which measures the share of students missing a substantial portion of the school year, was reported. The district’s rate places it below the midpoint among the three districts in Reynolds County, meaning it has a moderate level of chronic absenteeism compared to its peers. Per-pupil current spending is in the upper range among the county’s districts, which in a very small district often reflects the fixed costs of running a school spread over a small student body rather than an especially robust program budget.
Housing in the areas served by the district is affordable relative to state and national benchmarks. The weighted home value for the district is well below the Missouri median and the national median. The district draws from several small communities including Black, Bunker, Ellington, and Lesterville. Home values in these ZIP codes vary modestly, with Ellington showing a slight recent increase while other areas have seen small declines or held steady. The national average thirty-year fixed mortgage rate was in the range commonly seen in the current market. The national unemployment rate was moderate, and median household income has risen gradually in recent years.
No information was available on programs, course offerings, or strategic priorities at the district level. The district brief search returned no results. There is no published data on staffing ratios, discipline, or attendance beyond the chronic absenteeism figure. For a district this small, a parent’s best course is to reach out directly to learn about class structure, support services, and any enrichment or intervention programs. The central academic challenge is that the state assessment data cannot speak to how well students are learning, and the district’s small size means that every classroom likely contains multiple grade levels or combined groups. Families considering Centerville R-I should be comfortable with a very small, rural setting and should plan ahead for the transition to high school after eighth grade.
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