The top reported proficiency rate is 50% in Science. The lowest is 49% in English language arts.
Original Research by School Decision on West Side Elementary School
West Side Elementary School is the sole elementary campus of the West Side School District in Greers Ferry, Arkansas, serving preschool through sixth grade. The town of Greers Ferry itself is a small, rural community built around lake recreation. It is car-dependent and spread out along highway corridors; there is no traditional walkable downtown. The population is predominantly white and has been relatively stable to slightly declining in recent decades. The local economy is oriented toward tourists and visitors who come for boating, fishing, and camping on Greers Ferry Lake, which is the area’s primary civic anchor.
The district, which covers a large area across Cleburne and Van Buren counties, also includes the high school. No recent parent-relevant changes, such as boundary adjustments, program launches, or leadership shifts, were publicly reported for the district in the past several years. The district brief turned up only basic profile information, so a family interested in what is new or upcoming would want to check directly with the school or district office.
West Side Elementary’s enrollment is small, and the student body is overwhelmingly white. Every student at the school qualifies for free or reduced-price meals under the federal program, a figure that encompasses the entire student population.
The school participates in Arkansas’s ATLAS state assessments, and results from the most recent testing year show a clear upward pattern as students move through the grade levels. In math, the share of students scoring proficient or above was roughly a quarter in third grade, then rose to around two-fifths in fourth grade, above half in fifth grade, and about seven in ten in sixth grade. English language arts proficiency was around a third in third grade, just above half in fourth and fifth grades, and roughly similar in sixth grade. In science, proficiency rates were around half or just above across grades three through six. The overall proficiency index across tested subjects and grades places the school among the top-performing schools when compared with other districts in Cleburne County. This is a strength. A parent looking at the data will see that students in the later elementary grades are performing at a notably higher level than those in the early grades, which could reflect a number of factors including curriculum progression, teaching, or the composition of the cohort.
Because the school serves only through sixth grade, there is no graduation rate to report, and no data was available on chronic absenteeism. Information on discipline, staffing, and course access was also absent from the available records, so a parent with specific questions about class sizes, teacher experience, or student supports would need to raise those directly with the school.
The school is a non-charter, standard public school. Greers Ferry’s housing values are roughly in line with the Arkansas statewide benchmark and well below the national median, which is consistent with what one would expect in a small, lake-oriented rural community that has not seen rapid suburban growth. A family considering a move to the area for the school will find a quiet, low-density setting where the lake is the center of community life and the elementary school serves as a K-through-six pathway into the district’s high school.
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