Original Research by School Decision on Glenn Duffy Elementary School
Glenn Duffy Elementary School serves children in prekindergarten through second grade in Gravette, a small town in northwest Arkansas’s Benton County. Because the school’s grade band stops at second grade, state testing data is not available for this building the state of Arkansas administers its ATLAS assessments starting in third grade. There is therefore no academic proficiency information to report from the school itself. A parent who wants a sense of academic outcomes for the district overall would need to look at the performance of the elementary school that serves the tested grades.
Gravette is a mix of residential streets, a historic downtown, and industrial employers such as a packaging and logistics company and plastics manufacturers. Ozarks Community Hospital is headquartered here. The town has eight parks, two walk-bike trails, and a historical museum in the renovated Kindley House. Four state highways and an interstate run through Gravette, making car travel the primary way to get around, though there is a downtown core with Centennial Park and permanent food trucks. The town has been growing, including a recent annexation of the nearby Hiwasse community that expanded the city’s footprint considerably.
The school itself enrolls a large student body for an early-elementary building. The student population is predominantly white, with small shares of Hispanic students and students identifying as two or more races, and very small numbers of Asian, American Indian or Alaska Native, Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander, and Black students. More than two-fifths of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, a measure of economic need that puts the school above the national average for this indicator.
Housing in Gravette’s zip code is valued above the statewide median and roughly in line with the national figure. For context, a 30-year fixed mortgage rate at the time of this data was in the mid-single digits, and the national unemployment rate was around four percent. These are broad economic reference points rather than a precise picture of local affordability, but they suggest a market where home prices are moderate relative to the national benchmark and where mortgage costs are a material factor for most households.
The school operates under the Gravette School District. The district brief found no recent parent-relevant changes such as referendums, curriculum overhauls, or property-tax shifts. This is not unusual for a district of this size between reporting cycles, but it means there is no public information about pending adjustments that might affect families.
Because Glenn Duffy only covers the earliest grades, a parent considering the school should also look at the elementary school that serves grades three through five, where state test results would become available, and at the middle and high school for graduation rates and course pathways. The school’s size, grade span, and economic composition are the main characteristics available. A family prioritizing a small-town setting with a growing population, a large early-elementary building, and a student body that is economically diverse by national standards would find this school within that context. Anyone wanting to evaluate academic performance will need to look at the district’s tested grade levels.
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