Original Research by School Decision on Premier High School of Texarkana
Premier High School of Texarkana is a small public charter high school serving grades nine through twelve in Texarkana, Arkansas. It is part of the Premier High Schools of Arkansas district, a statewide charter network that, as publicly reported, expanded from four campuses to seven in recent years after a charter renewal process kept the district operating. The school sits on the Arkansas side of a city that shares its commercial and civic life with its Texas twin along State Line Avenue. Texarkana itself is a mid-sized border community whose economy draws on agriculture, manufacturing, the Red River Army Depot, and a mix of health care and retail employers. The city’s population has been declining modestly in recent decades, and development has centered more on institutional growth at the University of Arkansas Hope-Texarkana than on new housing tracts.
For a family considering this school, the most immediate fact is its size. The enrollment is small for a high school, with a student body distributed across all four grade levels. A substantial share of students come from low-income households, as indicated by the free and reduced-price lunch rate. Racially, the student population is split roughly evenly between Black and White students, with a small share identifying as Hispanic or two or more races. The school’s charter status means it is tuition-free and open to any student in the region, though it operates under the oversight of an authorizer rather than a traditional school district.
What is not available from the state’s public data is any measure of academic performance. State testing results for the 2023-24 school year are missing across all subjects and grade levels. A parent will find no proficiency rates, no participation rates, and no average scale scores in the data reported for this school. The missing results likely reflect the nature of the school—it is a high school, and Arkansas administers its statewide assessments in grades three through eight, with high school testing often limited to specific end-of-course exams that may not have been reported or may not apply to this campus. But the data does not explain the reason, so a parent should look into this further with the school directly to understand what academic benchmarks are available. Similarly, there is no reported graduation rate, chronic absenteeism rate, or discipline data. The neighbor comparison that places this school relative to districts in Miller County could not be calculated because the key metrics are missing.
Without test scores or a graduation rate, a parent must rely on other signals. The district itself has been expanding, adding campuses in Fayetteville, North Little Rock, and Russellville in the past few years, which suggests organizational stability after the charter renewal was granted. The school’s location on the main commercial corridor of a mid-sized city gives students access to the amenities of Texarkana, including museums, parks, and the nearby university branch campus, but the school itself is small and likely offers a more contained environment than the city’s larger traditional high schools.
Housing in the area is moderately priced relative to state and national benchmarks, and the overall economic context shows stable unemployment and typical mortgage rates. For a family weighing options, this school may appeal to those seeking a small, tuition-free charter high school in a border-city setting, but the absence of published academic outcomes means that any judgment about instructional quality or college readiness would require direct inquiry with school staff.
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