The top reported proficiency rate is 48% in Science. The lowest is 28% in Math.
Original Research by School Decision on Yellville-summit Middle School
Yellville-Summit Middle School serves grades five through eight in the small Ozark Mountain county seat of Yellville, Arkansas. The school is part of the Yellville-Summit School District, which draws from both Yellville and the nearby community of Summit. The town itself is compact, centered on a traditional courthouse square, and sits along Crooked Creek, a popular smallmouth bass stream that also runs through town. Light manufacturing, county government, and tourism related to the Buffalo National River and Bull Shoals Lake anchor the local economy. The district experienced significant flash flooding in mid-2024 that damaged homes and bridges, and the community has been recovering since.
The middle school’s student body is overwhelmingly white, with a very small number of students identified as American Indian, Asian, Hispanic, or multiracial. Nearly every student qualifies for free or reduced-price lunch, which places the school in a high-poverty context. Enrollment is moderate for a middle school serving four grade levels.
State assessment results for the most recent year show a mixed picture. In mathematics, the share of students scoring proficient or above varied across grades, with the lowest performance in eighth grade and the highest in seventh grade, but none of the four grades reached a level that would be considered strong. English language arts results were somewhat higher, with eighth graders achieving the best performance among the tested grades. Science scores were the most favorable subject overall, with a clear upward trend by grade: the share of students reaching proficiency increased through each grade and was highest at eighth grade.
When compared to other districts in Marion County, Yellville-Summit Middle School’s overall proficiency across tested subjects and grades places it in the bottom quartile of the two-district county. This is a small comparison set, so the position reflects the gap between only two districts, but it indicates that academic outcomes at this school trail those of the other district in the county. A parent may want to look into this further with the school to understand what supports are in place.
The school does not serve high school grades, so there is no graduation rate to report. Information on special education and English learner populations, discipline rates, chronic absenteeism, course access, and staffing was not available in the data provided, so those aspects of the school environment cannot be characterized here. A search for recent district-level changes such as curriculum shifts, property tax issues, or facility projects turned up no information, and nothing was found to suggest major changes affecting parents in the last several years.
For a family considering this school, the context is a small, rural middle school serving a high-poverty, predominantly white student body in a town with a quiet downtown, limited transit, and a recovering local economy. Academic proficiency is below the county’s other district, particularly in math, though science performance in the upper grades is a relative bright spot. The setting is one where outdoor recreation is central to the area’s identity, with Crooked Creek, the Buffalo National River, and the Fred Berry Conservation Education Center nearby. The lack of publicly reported data on staffing ratios, discipline patterns, and advanced course access means families should expect to ask direct questions of the school to fill in those gaps.
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