Original Research by School Decision on Delbert Pete & Pat Allen Ele
Delbert Pete & Pat Allen Elementary serves first and second grade only, a brief two-year span that shapes every part of what a parent can see here. State testing is not administered in these early grades in Arkansas, so there are no proficiency rates to examine. A family looking for academic outcome data will not find it at this level, and the school's contribution to a child's learning trajectory will need to be understood through other means, such as teacher communication, classroom work, and how the child transitions into the intermediate grades.
The school is one of seven campuses in the Siloam Springs School District, which is spread across this small city on the Arkansas-Oklahoma border. John Brown University, a private Christian institution, is a visible presence in town, and major employers include poultry processing, light manufacturing, and corporate operations. The city has grown steadily and sits at the western edge of the fast-growing Northwest Arkansas metro area, where larger economic forces are at play. Housing values in the area are above the state median but below the national median, and the area is affordable relative to the national market. The unemployment rate has been stable and moderate.
Enrollment at Allen Elementary is substantial for a school serving just two grade levels. The student body is diverse. Roughly two in five students are Hispanic, a similar share are white, and roughly one in seven are of two or more races, with smaller shares of Asian, American Indian or Alaska Native, Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander, and Black students. More than half of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, indicating that a majority of families have lower household incomes. The school is not a charter school.
The campus sits on North Mount Olive Street, and the district operates with a grade-level configuration that is common in the area: a separate school for early elementary. Children enter Allen after kindergarten at Northside Elementary and move on to Southside Elementary for third and fourth grade. This pattern means that a child attending Allen will change schools multiple times before reaching the intermediate school, middle school, and high school. For a family, this is a straightforward characteristic of the district's structure, not a strength or weakness, but it does mean that continuity of peer groups and teacher relationships is more segmented than in a K-5 or K-6 model.
The district itself did not appear to have any recent major changes of lasting impact publicly reported, so what a parent sees at Allen is likely the stable configuration the district has followed for some time. No staffing ratios, chronic absenteeism data, or discipline information was available, so those areas remain a gap for any family evaluating the school. The school's website was not provided in the data, so a parent would need to contact the district office or the school directly for details on curriculum, enrichment, class size, and support services.
Given the absence of state testing for these grades, a parent's evaluation of Allen Elementary will necessarily rest on factors outside of standardized academic metrics. The school serves a critical foundational stage, first and second grade, when children build reading and math fundamentals. The student body is economically diverse, with a majority of families on free or reduced-price lunch, and the school operates within a district that feeds into a single high school. The town of Siloam Springs offers parks, civic events, and a historic downtown, but the school campus is not located in that downtown core. The housing market has been appreciating steadily, and the broader region is growing.
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