Glen Rose Middle School, Malvern AR

Original Research by School Decision on Glen Rose Middle School

Glen Rose Middle School serves fifth through eighth grade as part of the Glen Rose School District, located along Highway 67 south of Malvern in Hot Spring County. The school sits in a rural setting where the town itself is the county seat, a manufacturing hub with three Acme Brick plants, Weyerhaeuser, and other industrial employers. Malvern has a traditional small-town downtown anchored by the art deco Hot Spring County Courthouse, and the area has seen modest steady population growth over recent decades. The school’s address and the district name suggest a close-knit, rural-community identity distinct from the Malvern School District, which serves the city proper.

Enrollment at Glen Rose Middle School is small, with the student body drawn from the district’s attendance area. The student population is predominantly white, with smaller numbers of Hispanic students and students identifying as two or more races. Just over half of the students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, a measure that points to a moderate level of economic need within the school community. The grade span covers the full middle school years, meaning students move on to Glen Rose High School after eighth grade.

State testing results are available for the 2023-24 school year, though with an important caveat: Arkansas recently changed both the name of its assessment and its cut scores in math and English language arts, so comparisons to prior years are not reliable. In math, proficiency rates across grades five through eight clustered around a modest range, with the highest share of students scoring at the proficient level or above in seventh grade and the lowest in eighth grade. English language arts results followed a similar pattern, with the highest proficiency in eighth grade and the lowest in seventh grade. Science results, tested at the same grade levels, showed a slightly different shape: eighth graders had the strongest performance, while sixth graders had the weakest. Across all three subjects and all tested grade levels, the school’s overall proficiency index falls in the bottom quartile when compared with other districts in Hot Spring County. A parent reviewing these numbers will want to ask the school about its academic improvement plans and how it supports students who are below the proficient benchmark.

The school environment data is limited. There is no reported information on special education populations, English learner enrollment, staffing ratios, discipline incidents, or chronic absenteeism. A parent considering the school should ask directly about class sizes, teacher experience, and the school’s approach to supporting students with diverse learning needs. Similarly, no course access data was available, so the range of elective or advanced offerings for middle schoolers is not documented here.

The Glen Rose School District recently showed no evidence of major property-tax changes, curriculum overhauls, or referenda in available sources, so the operational context appears stable. The broader Malvern area offers some civic amenities, including a whitewater park on the Ouachita River, an annual Brickfest festival, and Amtrak passenger service, but the school itself is located outside the city center in a more rural stretch of the county. For families weighing this school, the core picture is a small rural middle school serving a predominantly white, lower-middle-income community, with academic proficiency results that are below the county median across tested subjects. A parent will want a close conversation with the principal about how the school addresses those results and what academic supports are in place.

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Academic performance

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

Math

Grade 529%

School 29% · District 40% · ▼ 12 pts below district

▼ 4 pts below state median

Grade 639%

School 39% · District 28% · ▲ 10 pts above district

▲ 1 pts above state median

Grade 739%

School 39% · District 44% · ▼ 5 pts below district

▲ 3 pts above state median

Grade 826%

School 26% · District 33% · ▼ 8 pts below district

▼ 2 pts below state median

English language arts

Grade 526%

School 26% · District 47% · ▼ 21 pts below district

▼ 7 pts below state median

Grade 625%

School 25% · District 27% · ▼ 2 pts below district

▼ 8 pts below state median

Grade 720%

School 20% · District 25% · ▼ 5 pts below district

▼ 9 pts below state median

Grade 831%

School 31% · District 20% · ▲ 11 pts above district

▲ 2 pts above state median

Science

Grade 529%

School 29% · District 48% · ▼ 20 pts below district

▼ 4 pts below state median

Grade 628%

School 28% · District 33% · ▼ 6 pts below district

▼ 6 pts below state median

Grade 731%

School 31% · District 33% · ▼ 2 pts below district

▼ 4 pts below state median

Grade 835%

School 35% · District 30% · ▲ 6 pts above district

▲ 1 pts above state median

This schoolGLEN ROSE SCHOOL DISTRICT, 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.

Proficiency by household income

English language arts

Grade 5Lower-income24%Higher-income30%6 pp gap

Grade 6Lower-income15%Higher-income40%25 pp gap

Grade 7Lower-income17%Higher-income24%7 pp gap

Grade 8Lower-income24%Higher-income37%13 pp gap

Mathematics

Grade 5Lower-income24%Higher-income37%13 pp gap

Grade 6Lower-income30%Higher-income52%22 pp gap

Grade 7Lower-income36%Higher-income45%9 pp gap

Grade 8Lower-income30%Higher-income21%8 pp gap