The top reported proficiency rate is 49% in Math. The lowest is 39% in English language arts.
Original Research by School Decision on Cabool Elem.
Cabool Elementary is a regular public school in the Cabool R-IV district, serving children from pre-kindergarten through fourth grade. It is the only elementary school in a small, rural Ozarks district where the high school campus sits close to downtown on the same Main Street corridor. The school’s enrollment is small, consistent with a town that is growing slowly. Nearly every student who attends qualifies for free or reduced-price lunch, a figure that signals a high level of economic need in the community.
The school provides the foundational grades for the district, and a parent evaluating this school is really evaluating the start of a child’s academic path in a place with limited school choice. There are no other public elementary options in Cabool. The district’s middle and high schools are the natural continuation.
On the Missouri Assessment Program, the school’s proficiency rates show a mixed picture that a parent should understand at the grade level. In third grade math, a modest share of students scored proficient or above. In third grade English language arts, that share was lower. By fourth grade, the rates moved up for both subjects, with math reaching a point where roughly half of students met the proficiency bar, and English language arts showing a share of students scoring proficient that was also close to that level. When the school’s overall proficiency index is placed relative to all other districts in Texas County, it lands in the top quarter. That means that among the seven districts in the county, Cabool Elementary’s combined performance across tested grades and subjects is among the strongest. This is a meaningful strength, given the high poverty context. The district itself operates within a county where economic conditions are challenging, and the school’s results relative to its neighbors suggest it is out-performing what the poverty statistics alone might predict.
Because the school serves only through fourth grade, there is no graduation rate to report for this campus. That is a structural feature of the grade band, not a missing indicator.
The student body is almost entirely white, with small numbers of students identifying as Hispanic, American Indian or Alaska Native, two or more races, and Black. Data on special education and English learner enrollment was not available in the reported information. A parent who wants to understand the school’s support for students with disabilities or multilingual learners would need to ask the school directly.
The housing market in Cabool is affordable, with home values well below state and national benchmarks. The town’s growth is modest, and the Chamber of Commerce promotes it as a place for remote workers and families seeking a low cost of living. The school buildings themselves are integrated into the town’s Main Street fabric; the high school is a historic native rock structure, and the district offices are on the same downtown street.
No recent district-level changes such as a bond referendum, curriculum overhaul, or boundary shift were found in publicly reported sources. The district brief came up empty on those items. A parent moving into the area should ask the administration directly about any upcoming facilities plans or programming shifts, but the available data does not point to any major disruption on the near horizon.
The school fits a family seeking a small, rural elementary experience in a district that performs respectably against its county peers despite high poverty. It does not offer the breadth of programs a large suburban district might, but for the early grades, the academic foundation is solid relative to the region. A parent concerned about the third-grade English language arts numbers may want to ask what literacy interventions are in place and how the school tracks progress before fourth grade. Otherwise, this is a straightforward, neighborhood elementary school in a small town where the school and the community are closely tied.
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