Lavaca Middle School, Lavaca AR - Test Scores & Data

Original Research by School Decision on Lavaca Middle School

Lavaca Middle School is the upper-grades school for the Lavaca School District, serving grades five through eight. It sits in a town that has transformed from a farming settlement into a quiet bedroom community for nearby Fort Smith. The town is small and primarily residential, with a modest downtown strip of historic brick buildings and a city park. Housing values in the area sit slightly above the Arkansas statewide benchmark, and the population has grown at a steady, moderate pace over the last couple of decades, with former berry fields replaced by subdivisions.

Enrollment skews heavily white, with a small number of Hispanic and multiracial students, and a very small number of Asian and American Indian students. Just over half of the student body qualifies for free or reduced-price lunch, a marker that a substantial share of families rely on meal assistance. The school is not a charter and not a magnet; its charter status and magnet status are known, though its Title I status and special education and English learner counts are not reported in the available data, so a parent should check that directly with the school.

In terms of academic results, the picture is mixed and varies by grade and subject. In math, the middle years show a noticeable difference from one grade to the next, with proficiency rates in the school's most recent state testing higher for sixth graders and lower for fifth and seventh graders. Eighth-grade math falls somewhere between. In English language arts, performance is lower across most grades, with the strongest results appearing in sixth grade and the weakest in fifth and seventh. Science results follow a similar pattern: sixth graders post the strongest proficiency, while fifth and seventh graders show weaker numbers across the board. The data comes from the Arkansas ATLAS assessment system, which the state uses as its regular accountability test, but the participation rate was not supplied, so a reader cannot confirm what share of students sat for the exams. The school also did not report chronic absenteeism data, which means a parent who wants to understand attendance patterns would need to ask the school directly.

When compared against other districts in Sebastian County, Lavaca Middle School sits just above the midpoint on a combined measure of proficiency across tested subjects and grades. That mid-pack placement suggests it lands in the middle of the county pack rather than near the top or bottom, but the range across districts is not especially wide.

No high school programs or graduation data are relevant here because the school ends at eighth grade; those metrics apply to Lavaca High School, which sits on the same campus and shares the district. The district has built new facilities in recent years, including a performing arts center on the high school campus that doubles as a community venue. No major curriculum changes, referendums, or property-tax shifts surfaced in the recent search, so the district appears to have been stable in its direction.

For a family considering Lavaca, this is a school that serves the middle years in a growing but still small-town setting. The test results show real variation from grade to grade, particularly in math and English, and a parent should look into how the school addresses that unevenness. The peer environment is largely white and economically mixed, with a notable share of students on meal assistance. The town itself is quiet, connected by a short drive to Fort Smith for work and shopping, and has a small set of civic anchors.

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Academic performance

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

Math

Grade 535%

School 35% · District 35%

▲ 3 pts above state median · ▲ 3 pts above county median

Grade 655%

School 55% · District 55%

▲ 18 pts above state median

Grade 734%

School 34% · District 34%

▼ 2 pts below state median

Grade 843%

School 43% · District 43%

▲ 15 pts above state median

English language arts

Grade 524%

School 24% · District 24%

▼ 10 pts below state median · ▼ 6 pts below county median

Grade 641%

School 41% · District 41%

▲ 9 pts above state median

Grade 727%

School 27% · District 27%

▼ 2 pts below state median

Grade 825%

School 25% · District 25%

▼ 4 pts below state median

Science

Grade 528%

School 28% · District 28%

▼ 5 pts below state median · even with county median

Grade 654%

School 54% · District 54%

▲ 20 pts above state median

Grade 721%

School 21% · District 21%

▼ 14 pts below state median

Grade 834%

School 34% · District 34%

even with state median

This schoolLAVACA 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-income42%Higher-income57%14 pp gap

Grade 6Lower-income21%Higher-income42%21 pp gap

Grade 7Lower-income19%Higher-income38%19 pp gap

Grade 8Lower-income30%Higher-income40%10 pp gap

Mathematics

Grade 5Lower-income49%Higher-income78%30 pp gap

Grade 6Lower-income28%Higher-income42%14 pp gap

Grade 7Lower-income30%Higher-income63%33 pp gap

Grade 8Lower-income17%Higher-income39%22 pp gap