Valley Springs Middle School, Valley Springs AR

Original Research by School Decision on Valley Springs Middle School

Valley Springs Middle School serves grades five through eight in the small Ozark town of Valley Springs, Arkansas. The school is the only middle-grade campus in the Valley Springs School District, a rural system that consolidates students from the town itself and the surrounding communities of Bellefonte and Everton. The campus on School Street has long been the central civic feature of the town, and a WPA-era building on the property is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The town is tiny, oriented around U.S. Highway 65, with no traditional walkable downtown. The school district is the largest local employer, followed by a Lockheed Martin facility and a quarry. Population growth in Valley Springs has been minimal over recent decades, and the district's overall enrollment has declined from historically higher levels.

The student body at the middle school is overwhelmingly white, with very small numbers of students from other racial and ethnic backgrounds. About half of the students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, indicating that while the school serves a community with some economic need, it is not one of high poverty concentration.

On the Arkansas ATLAS assessments, the school's results vary noticeably by grade and subject. In mathematics, the share of students scoring proficient or above rises from roughly three-fifths of fifth graders to about two-thirds of sixth graders, then drops to just over half of seventh graders before climbing to a strong level among eighth graders. In English language arts, the pattern is more uneven. Sixth graders post a solid proficiency rate, but fifth graders sit at about half proficient, and seventh graders drop to a notably lower level that a parent may want to look into further with the school. Eighth graders rebound to around the midpoint. Science results also fluctuate, with sixth graders performing at a high level while seventh graders trail significantly. Overall, when the school's performance is averaged across all tested subjects and grades, it places in the top quartile relative to other school districts in Boone County. This is a meaningful strength, as the cohort includes eight districts and the school's composite index surpasses the county median.

One important gap in the available data is the absence of information on chronic absenteeism, which is often a useful indicator of school climate and student engagement. The school's civil rights and discipline data were also not available in the source material. These are areas where a family might want to ask direct questions of the school administration.

The middle school does not serve high school grades, so there is no graduation rate to report, and the comparison set used is districts within Boone County rather than individual middle schools. No program offerings were listed in the data, so it is unclear whether the school provides specialized courses, electives, or extracurricular pathways beyond the core academic curriculum.

For a family considering this school, the picture is one of a small, rural middle school in a stable but not rapidly growing community. The academic results show genuine strengths, particularly in math and science at several grade levels, alongside a soft spot in seventh-grade reading that warrants a conversation with the school. The student population is homogeneous. The school functions as the heart of its town, a place where the campus is both the academic center and a community anchor.

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Academic performance

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

Math

Grade 562%

School 62% · District 62%

▲ 29 pts above state median

Grade 665%

School 65% · District 65%

▲ 28 pts above state median

Grade 753%

School 53% · District 53%

▲ 17 pts above state median

Grade 872%

School 72% · District 72%

▲ 44 pts above state median

English language arts

Grade 550%

School 50% · District 50%

▲ 17 pts above state median

Grade 666%

School 66% · District 66%

▲ 33 pts above state median

Grade 731%

School 31% · District 31%

▲ 2 pts above state median

Grade 855%

School 55% · District 55%

▲ 26 pts above state median

Science

Grade 562%

School 62% · District 62%

▲ 29 pts above state median

Grade 684%

School 84% · District 84%

▲ 51 pts above state median

Grade 741%

School 41% · District 41%

▲ 6 pts above state median

Grade 868%

School 68% · District 68%

▲ 34 pts above state median

This schoolVALLEY 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.

Proficiency by household income

English language arts

Grade 5Lower-income48%Higher-income60%13 pp gap

Grade 6Lower-income46%Higher-income67%20 pp gap

Grade 7Lower-income44%Higher-income73%30 pp gap

Grade 8Lower-income42%Higher-income54%12 pp gap

Mathematics

Grade 5Lower-income48%Higher-income66%18 pp gap

Grade 6Lower-income43%Higher-income64%21 pp gap

Grade 7Lower-income53%Higher-income73%20 pp gap

Grade 8Lower-income50%Higher-income83%33 pp gap