The top reported proficiency rate is 28% in Math. The lowest is 12% in English language arts.
Original Research by School Decision on Randy Hughes Elementary School
Randy Hughes Elementary School serves kindergarten through sixth grade in the Blevins School District, a rural and remote public system in southwestern Arkansas. The school is located in the small town of Blevins, a community of roughly a square mile at the crossroads of two highways, where residential streets meet a modest commercial strip with a bank, a hardware store, a grocery-and-grill, and a few other local businesses. The surrounding area is agricultural, and the town’s population has been slowly declining over recent decades, a pattern tied to shifts away from lumber and field crops toward poultry processing and beef cattle. The school district itself is one of only four remaining in Hempstead County after many rounds of consolidation, making it a central civic institution in a place with limited public amenities.
Randy Hughes is the elementary campus for the district, serving all students through grade six before they move to the district’s high school. Total enrollment is on the smaller side for an elementary building that includes a middle-grade component. The student body is predominantly white, with a notable share of Black students and a smaller Hispanic presence. A substantial majority of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, a figure that places the school in a high-poverty context. The district operates on a four-day school week, a schedule choice that families should factor into childcare and daily routines. Data on English learner or special education populations was not available; a parent may want to ask the school directly about these supports.
Academic performance, as measured by Arkansas’s state assessments for the 2024-25 school year, shows a mixed picture with clear variation by both grade and subject. In math, fourth graders demonstrated a relatively stronger proficiency rate, with a majority of students meeting the state’s proficient-or-above benchmark. However, proficiency rates for third and fifth graders were noticeably lower, and for sixth graders the rate was very low. A similar pattern appears in English language arts: fourth graders again had the highest rate among tested grades, though still below a majority, while third, fifth, and sixth graders posted very low rates, with only a small fraction reaching proficiency. In science, fourth graders achieved a proficiency rate that, while still modest, was the strongest among the elementary grades tested; third, fifth, and sixth graders again showed low proficiency. Overall, when averaging across all tested subjects and grades, the school’s proficiency index sits below the midpoint relative to the other districts in Hempstead County. The school’s strongest showing was in fourth grade across all three subjects, but the sharp drop-off in later grades — particularly in sixth grade — is a soft spot that a parent may want to discuss with the school, especially as students prepare to transition to middle or high school.
The school does not offer high school programs, so there is no graduation rate to consider. No chronic absenteeism data or discipline statistics were reported in the available records, and no course access or staffing information was provided. For a family weighing this school, the core takeaway is that Randy Hughes Elementary serves a very rural, high-poverty community with a small enrollment, a four-day schedule, and academic outcomes that are strongest in fourth grade but weaken considerably by sixth grade and in the upper elementary years. The school is the academic foundation for the district’s students, and the notable variation by grade level suggests that a family moving into the area would benefit from a close conversation with teachers and administrators about how the school supports students who are struggling, particularly as they approach the end of elementary school.
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