The top reported proficiency rate is 53% in Science. The lowest is 43% in English language arts.
Original Research by School Decision on Quitman Elementary School
Quitman Elementary School serves students from kindergarten through fifth grade in the Quitman School District, a small rural district in Cleburne County. The school occupies grounds that once housed Quitman Male and Female College, the buildings and property turned over to public schools after the college closed. The town of Quitman itself, straddling Cleburne and Faulkner counties in the Ozark foothills, is a small place that has seen little population growth in recent decades; many residents commute roughly twenty miles to Conway for work. The school’s enrollment is drawn from this tight-knit community, and the elementary building sits within town, integrated with other civic functions along Arkansas Highway 25.
On state assessments administered through Arkansas’s ATLAS system, Quitman Elementary’s overall proficiency across tested subjects and grades places it in the top quartile relative to other districts in Cleburne County. That county-level comparison is a meaningful one: with only four districts in the county, being in the top quartile means the school’s average proficiency rate is above the middle of that small group. Within the building, results vary by subject. In science, the school posts the strongest performance, with a majority of students in each tested grade meeting the proficiency benchmark in the most recent year. Math and English language arts show a more mixed picture; in both subjects, the proportion of students scoring at the proficient or advanced level falls below half across grades three through five, with math in fifth grade and ELA in third grade representing the lower ends. A parent considering the school may want to ask about how the school addresses literacy and math instruction in the upper elementary years, particularly given that the pattern is consistent across multiple grades.
The school’s student body is predominantly white, reflecting the broader community’s demographics. A substantial share of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, a marker that the school serves a population with considerable economic need. No data were available on the share of students receiving special education services or English learner supports. The school is a traditional public school, not a charter or magnet; its status under Title I was not reported.
The Quitman School District itself appears to have undergone little in the way of publicly reported major changes in recent years. A search for district-wide initiatives, bond measures, or program expansions turned up nothing of lasting impact. The town’s housing market offers home values that are moderately above the statewide median, though the area has not seen the kind of suburban growth that has reshaped some parts of central Arkansas. For a family moving into the area, the elementary school provides the first step in a k-12 pathway that continues through Quitman High School, all within the same district.
No information on discipline rates, chronic absenteeism, or staffing ratios was available for this school, so those aspects of the school environment cannot be assessed from the data at hand. The absence of such data is not unusual for an elementary school of this size, but a parent who values understanding school climate may wish to explore those topics directly with the building. What is clear is that Quitman Elementary holds its own among the few districts in Cleburne County, with science as a particular bright spot, while leaving room for conversation about how it supports early and middle-grade literacy and math achievement.
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