Main Street Visual & Performing Arts Magnet School, Hot Springs AR

Original Research by School Decision on Main Street Visual & Performing Arts Magnet School

Main Street Visual & Performing Arts Magnet School serves students from preschool through sixth grade in the Hot Springs School District. The school’s name signals its academic focus, and it operates as a magnet school within the public system, though the data provided does not specify whether it has a formal admissions process or how the arts are integrated into the daily curriculum. It is located on Main Street in Hot Springs, a resort city and the county seat of Garland County, known for its thermal bathhouses, Hot Springs National Park, Oaklawn Park horse racing, and a tourism-driven economy. The downtown area, with its historic Central Avenue and Bathhouse Row, is walkable and hosts civic functions near the county courthouse, while the surrounding national park offers hiking trails. Major employers include the hospitality sector, the National Park Service, and Oaklawn Park. The city has grown slowly in recent years.

The school serves a student body that is diverse in racial and ethnic composition. Every student at the school qualifies for free or reduced-price lunch, which places the school in a high-poverty context. The school does not serve high school grades, so it has no graduation rate to report. The data also does not include information on the share of students with disabilities or English learners, a gap that parents may want to ask the school about directly.

State testing results from the 2024-25 school year, using Arkansas’s ATLAS assessment, show that in math, the share of students scoring at proficient or above rose modestly from grade to grade, starting in third grade and reaching a higher rate by sixth. In English language arts, a similar pattern appeared, with the highest proficiency seen in sixth grade. Science results followed the same general range across grades three through six. These figures place the school’s overall proficiency across tested subjects and grades in the bottom quartile among districts in Garland County. A parent looking at these numbers will see that the school faces clear academic challenges relative to its county peers. Because the school serves a population where every student qualifies for economic support, the results should be understood in that context. The data does not include information on academic growth over time, so it is not possible to tell whether students are making faster progress from year to year.

The school’s enrollment is relatively large for an elementary and middle school combination, with a full preschool program through sixth grade. The housing market in the area has seen home values slightly below the national benchmark, with rents rising in the most recent data. The economic context includes a national unemployment rate just above four percent and a median household income near the national figure, though the school’s own data reflects a high concentration of low-income families.

No recent district-level changes were found in publicly reported information, and no major programmatic details beyond the magnet theme were available in the data. A family considering this school will want to learn more about how the visual and performing arts focus actually works in the classroom, what supports are in place for students who are behind academically, and what opportunities exist for students as they move on to the district’s upper grades.

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Academic performance

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

Math

Grade 312%

School 12% · District 23% · ▼ 10 pts below district

▼ 24 pts below state median · ▼ 33 pts below county median

Grade 416%

School 16% · District 30% · ▼ 14 pts below district

▼ 24 pts below state median · ▼ 24 pts below county median

Grade 518%

School 18% · District 20% · ▼ 2 pts below district

▼ 15 pts below state median · ▼ 12 pts below county median

Grade 626%

School 26% · District 30% · ▼ 3 pts below district

▼ 11 pts below state median · ▼ 5 pts below county median

English language arts

Grade 312%

School 12% · District 25% · ▼ 12 pts below district

▼ 20 pts below state median · ▼ 27 pts below county median

Grade 417%

School 17% · District 28% · ▼ 11 pts below district

▼ 19 pts below state median · ▼ 16 pts below county median

Grade 520%

School 20% · District 23% · ▼ 3 pts below district

▼ 14 pts below state median · ▼ 11 pts below county median

Grade 621%

School 21% · District 26% · ▼ 5 pts below district

▼ 12 pts below state median · ▼ 11 pts below county median

Science

Grade 315%

School 15% · District 27% · ▼ 12 pts below district

▼ 21 pts below state median · ▼ 28 pts below county median

Grade 417%

School 17% · District 27% · ▼ 10 pts below district

▼ 19 pts below state median · ▼ 16 pts below county median

Grade 517%

School 17% · District 20% · ▼ 4 pts below district

▼ 16 pts below state median · ▼ 18 pts below county median

Grade 619%

School 19% · District 26% · ▼ 7 pts below district

▼ 15 pts below state median · ▼ 15 pts below county median

This schoolHOT SPRINGS 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.