Cold Springs Elementary School, Bremen AL

Original Research by School Decision on Cold Springs Elementary School

Cold Springs Elementary School sits in Bremen, a rural unincorporated community in Cullman County on the southeast side of Smith Lake. The school serves students from pre-kindergarten through eighth grade on a combined campus with Cold Springs High School, set along a county road away from any commercial center. The area is auto-dependent, with no downtown or pedestrian infrastructure, and its civic life centers on the schools and the recreational lake nearby. Housing values have risen in recent years, and the community remains low-density and residential, with slow population growth.

The school is a regular public school within the Cullman County district. Academically, it participates in Alabama’s state testing program for grades three through eight. In reading and English language arts, the school shows consistently strong results across those grades, with the majority of students meeting proficiency benchmarks in every tested year. That pattern holds from third grade through eighth grade, making literacy a clear strength of the building.

Mathematics results are more mixed. Proficiency rates sit at roughly half or just under half of students in grades three through six, with a steeper drop in seventh grade and a slight recovery by eighth grade. The overall picture in math is weaker than in reading, and a parent considering the school may want to ask the school directly about math instruction, intervention supports, and whether recent trends are a focus of the building’s improvement efforts. Science proficiency, tested in fourth and eighth grades, falls in a moderate range, close to the math average rather than the reading highs.

State testing data was available for the most recent school year, but no multi-year trend was present because only one year of data was reported for this profile. No graduation rate applies, as the school ends at eighth grade.

The student body reflects the surrounding community. The large majority of students are white, with small shares identifying as Hispanic or two or more races. A substantial share of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, indicating that many families are in the lower to middle income brackets. Data on special education identification and English learner status was not available. The school does not appear to be a Title I school based on the information provided, though the data field for that status was missing rather than negative.

When placed in context with other schools across Cullman County’s districts, Cold Springs Elementary’s overall proficiency across tested subjects and grades sits above the midpoint. That means that among the schools in the county’s two districts, this one performs stronger on average than the middle of the pack, driven largely by its reading outcomes.

No information was available on course access, staffing ratios, discipline patterns, or chronic absenteeism. A parent may want to ask the school about class sizes, enrichment offerings, and how the school supports students who are below grade level, especially in math. The district-level strategic plans or recent changes were not found, so those are not addressed here.

For a family looking for a K-8 option in a quiet rural setting with solid literacy outcomes and a small-town feel, Cold Springs Elementary fits. The math piece is worth exploring further, but the reading proficiency and the school’s position relative to others in the county give a generally positive academic picture.

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Academic performance

How students perform on state tests, by grade, set against the district.

Math

Grade 353%

School 53% · District 44% · ▲ 9 pts above district

▲ 10 pts above state median · even with county median

Grade 451%

School 51% · District 39% · ▲ 12 pts above district

▲ 14 pts above state median · ▲ 11 pts above county median

Grade 541%

School 41% · District 43% · ▼ 2 pts below district

▲ 8 pts above state median · even with county median

Grade 648%

School 48% · District 37% · ▲ 11 pts above district

▲ 19 pts above state median · ▲ 6 pts above county median

Grade 726%

School 26% · District 24% · ▲ 2 pts above district

▲ 10 pts above state median · ▲ 2 pts above county median

Grade 838%

School 38% · District 30% · ▲ 9 pts above district

▲ 23 pts above state median · ▲ 10 pts above county median

English language arts

Grade 387%

School 87% · District 68% · ▲ 20 pts above district

▲ 22 pts above state median · ▲ 14 pts above county median

Grade 471%

School 71% · District 63% · ▲ 7 pts above district

▲ 12 pts above state median · ▲ 7 pts above county median

Grade 582%

School 82% · District 75% · ▲ 7 pts above district

▲ 15 pts above state median · ▲ 6 pts above county median

Grade 666%

School 66% · District 62% · ▲ 4 pts above district

▲ 11 pts above state median · even with county median

Grade 760%

School 60% · District 58% · ▲ 2 pts above district

▲ 6 pts above state median · ▼ 1 pts below county median

Grade 880%

School 80% · District 64% · ▲ 17 pts above district

▲ 28 pts above state median · ▲ 17 pts above county median

Science

Grade 459%

School 59% · District 48% · ▲ 11 pts above district

▲ 20 pts above state median · ▲ 10 pts above county median

Grade 860%

School 60% · District 48% · ▲ 12 pts above district

▲ 25 pts above state median · ▲ 13 pts above county median

This schoolCullman County, same grade

Graduation rate (ACGR) reflects the federally published Adjusted Cohort Graduation Rate for the most recent year available. We refresh this data annually at the close of each academic year in June. The federal source publishes a banded rate (for example, "90-94%") instead of an exact number for cohorts small enough to risk identifying individual students. The state distribution chart, where shown, plots every school in the state with a published rate or band; schools whose rate is federally suppressed are excluded. Where the federal source publishes a band rather than an exact rate, the school is placed within its band using a stable, ID-derived offset, so its position is consistent across visits.