St. Paul Elementary School, St Paul AR

Original Research by School Decision on St. Paul Elementary School

St. Paul Elementary School serves kindergarten through sixth grade in the small rural community of St. Paul, Arkansas, as part of the Huntsville School District. The town itself developed around the lumber industry that has since declined, and it now functions as a quiet residential area along the upper White River near the Ozark-St. Francis National Forest. Local businesses are limited to a handful of small shops and a grocery store, and the town’s low-density layout means residents rely on cars for connections beyond its borders. The school is integrated into the fabric of this very small place, with the public library nearby and the Ozark forest bordering the community to the south.

The school’s enrollment is modest, and the student body is overwhelmingly white, with a small number of Hispanic and multiracial students. A very large majority of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, a signal that the community faces considerable economic disadvantage. Information on special education and English learner populations was not reported in the available data.

State assessment results from the Arkansas ATLAS tests for the most recent school year show that across grades three through six, proficiency rates in math, reading, and science were low. In each tested grade and subject, the share of students scoring at the proficient level or above was small, with only a few exceptions where it reached about half. The pattern is consistent enough that a parent considering the school may want to discuss academic supports and strategies directly with the school to understand how instruction is tailored to the needs of students who are not yet meeting grade-level benchmarks. Because St. Paul Elementary serves only through sixth grade, there is no high school graduation rate to review, and the school does not offer advanced coursework such as AP or dual credit. No information on course access, staffing ratios, or discipline was available.

The school is located in Madison County, but with only one other district in the county for comparison, no meaningful positioning relative to neighboring districts could be produced.

The Huntsville School District, to which St. Paul Elementary belongs, was formed after earlier consolidation that brought St. Paul High School into the district while keeping its building in town. No recent district-level changes such as bond measures, curriculum shifts, or property tax adjustments were found in publicly available sources.

For a family seeking an elementary school in a quiet, rural Ozarks setting with a small student body and deep ties to a close-knit town, St. Paul Elementary offers that environment. The academic picture, however, presents a significant soft spot. Proficiency rates across core subjects are low, and the school’s economic disadvantage is high. A parent choosing this school would want to learn how teachers address these challenges, what intervention programs exist, and how the school engages families in supporting learning at home. The data provided does not speak to those questions, so direct inquiry with the school is the next step.

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Academic performance

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

Math

Grade 317%

School 17% · District 25% · ▼ 8 pts below district

▼ 20 pts below state median

Grade 425%

School 25% · District 25% · ▲ 1 pts above district

▼ 15 pts below state median

Grade 540%

School 40% · District 26% · ▲ 14 pts above district

▲ 7 pts above state median

Grade 650%

School 50% · District 26% · ▲ 24 pts above district

▲ 13 pts above state median

English language arts

Grade 317%

School 17% · District 29% · ▼ 12 pts below district

▼ 16 pts below state median

Grade 425%

School 25% · District 29% · ▼ 4 pts below district

▼ 11 pts below state median

Grade 520%

School 20% · District 25% · ▼ 4 pts below district

▼ 13 pts below state median

Grade 650%

School 50% · District 31% · ▲ 19 pts above district

▲ 17 pts above state median

Science

Grade 311%

School 11% · District 31% · ▼ 19 pts below district

▼ 25 pts below state median

Grade 435%

School 35% · District 35%

▼ 1 pts below state median

Grade 520%

School 20% · District 28% · ▼ 8 pts below district

▼ 13 pts below state median

Grade 636%

School 36% · District 34% · ▲ 1 pts above district

▲ 2 pts above state median

This schoolHUNTSVILLE 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.