The top reported proficiency rate is 39% in English language arts. The lowest is 6% in Science.
Original Research by School Decision on Buchanan Co. R-iv
Buchanan County R-IV is a small public school district serving roughly three hundred students from pre-kindergarten through twelfth grade in the rural northwestern corner of Missouri. The student body is almost entirely white, with a very small number of students identifying as Asian or with two or more races. The district operates two schools: DeKalb Junior-Senior High and Rushville Elementary. The absence of free-and-reduced-price lunch data, as well as information on students with disabilities and English learners, means a parent cannot determine the district’s socioeconomic or special-education profile from this data, and this gap may reflect reporting thresholds for a district this size.
Academically, the picture is limited. State assessment data for the 2024-25 school year is heavily suppressed, likely because small tested-population counts in individual grade levels fall below state disclosure minimums. The few results that are reported are weak. In fourth-grade math, roughly one in six students scored proficient or above. In third-grade English language arts, under two in five students reached that bar. In fifth-grade science, the share was even lower. When tested as a single entity across all reported grades and subjects, the district’s composite proficiency sits in the bottom quartile among Buchanan County’s districts. Subjects and grades that could not be reported because of small numbers are simply absent from the data, which is common for a district this size but leaves a parent with little to go on when trying to judge grade-level performance beyond the early elementary years.
A graduation rate was not available in the data provided. Given that the district serves a complete K-12 span, this is likely a reporting gap or a suppression issue rather than an indication the district does not graduate students. For a family evaluating this district, that missing figure is a concrete question to raise with the school directly.
Chronic absenteeism is reported at a rate above the midpoint among county districts, which is a marker a parent may want to explore further with the school or district office to understand what drives it.
The district’s per-pupil spending sits in the upper range compared to other Buchanan County districts. Without detail on how those dollars are allocated, this is a neutral characteristic but may reflect higher costs of operating small, rural schools.
The two schools in this district anchor a thin geography. The towns and unincorporated areas served include De Kalb and Faucett, small communities north of St. Joseph, as well as a portion of St. Joseph’s northern edge and an area near the Missouri River that carries a zip code without a named city. Housing values vary noticeably across these zip codes, from modest to moderately priced, and have generally risen over the past year, consistent with a tight rural housing market. The national unemployment rate is moderate, and mortgage rates are elevated, factors that may shape a family’s decision about relocating here, but no local economic context for this specific district was available.
We looked for recent district changes or strategic priorities and found little publicly reported that would affect a parent’s decision in a lasting way. Buchanan County R-IV fits a family seeking a very small, rural K-12 setting where the high school shares a campus with the middle school and class sizes are small by design. The sparse assessment record means a parent will need to rely heavily on conversations with teachers, visits to the schools, and direct inquiry about what the district’s curriculum, support services, and postsecondary pathways look like. The academic data that does exist suggests the district faces headwinds in core subject proficiency, particularly in math and science, compared to the other district in the county.
See more original research from School Decision →