The top reported proficiency rate is 49% in English language arts. The lowest is 38% in Math.
Original Research by School Decision on Manila Elementary School
Manila Elementary School serves the children of Manila, a small agricultural town in the Arkansas Delta, from prekindergarten through sixth grade. This is the only elementary school in the Manila School District, and its roughly six hundred students come from a community that is overwhelmingly white and where a substantial share of families qualify for free or reduced-price lunch. The town itself sits on a lowland area called Buffalo Island, surrounded by farmland, with a compact grid of streets and a downtown that holds a depot museum and a state park honoring a World War I hero. It is a slowly growing place, with housing values that sit below what you would find across the state as a whole and well below the national figure, meaning the cost of entry for a family is relatively modest compared with many other parts of the country.
On state assessments administered in the 2024-25 school year, Manila Elementary showed a mixed picture that improves notably as students get older. In math, the share of students reaching proficiency rose from a lower level in third, fourth, and fifth grade to a noticeably stronger showing in sixth grade, where about half of students met the bar. A similar pattern appeared in English language arts: third and fifth grade results were moderate, while fourth and sixth grade both landed in a similar stronger range. In science, the trend again pointed upward from third through sixth grade, with the sixth-grade cohort reaching a level where roughly half of students were proficient. Across all tested subjects and grades, the school’s overall proficiency index placed it in the top quartile relative to the other districts in Mississippi County. That county-level comparison is the relevant one, and within that set Manila Elementary sits above the middle of the pack, though a parent should keep in mind that the county itself includes districts with a wide range of outcomes.
The younger grades are where the school’s academic challenge appears most concentrated. Proficiency rates for third and fourth graders in math were not where many families would want them to be, and third-grade science was similar. A parent of a child in the early elementary years may want to ask the school about its math and reading interventions, how it identifies students who are behind, and what supports are available before the later grades where the numbers trend higher. The size of the school means each grade typically has several sections, which can allow for some grouping by need, but the data does not speak to class sizes or staffing ratios, as those fields were not available.
Enrollment is stable across the grades, with each grade from kindergarten through sixth holding roughly seven to eight dozen students. The student body is nearly all white, with small numbers of Hispanic, Black, and multiracial students. English learner and special education counts were not reported in the available data, so a family with a child who has an Individualized Education Program or who is learning English should contact the school directly to understand what services are in place.
The school’s setting is rural and rooted in the town’s identity. Manila’s streets are named for battleships, a local curiosity that comes from the town’s name and the history of the Spanish-American War. The landscape is flat and agricultural, and the nearest larger city is Jonesboro, roughly a half-hour drive west. There is no walkability score or detailed pedestrian infrastructure data for the town, and the school’s location relative to downtown was not described in the materials we could find. The district itself has no recent major changes documented in publicly available sources such as referenda or curriculum shifts that would be top-of-mind for a new family.
For a parent considering Manila Elementary, the attraction is a single elementary school in a small, slow-growing Delta town where housing is affordable and the school’s later grades show a stronger academic trajectory than its early ones within a county that has a wide range of outcomes. The soft spots are real in the primary grades, and a family should expect to stay engaged with the school on those subjects. The school does not serve high school grades, so the district’s middle and high school experience would be the next thing to investigate.
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