The top reported proficiency rate is 57% in Math. The lowest is 44% in English language arts.
Original Research by School Decision on Steadley Elem.
Steadley Elementary serves kindergarten through third grade in the Carthage R-IX district. Because it is a primary school covering only the early grades, it has no graduation rate, and state testing data is available only for third grade, the one tested grade level it serves. That one year of results gives a limited but useful picture.
On the Missouri Assessment Program, at the third-grade level math proficiency was posted at a rate above the midpoint of tested elementary grades across Jasper County, and English language arts proficiency was lower than math. Comparisons that include this school's standing relative to other districts in the county show that Steadley's overall proficiency index across tested subjects sits above the midpoint among the set of districts in Jasper County. Because the data comes from a single grade, it is a narrower window than a school serving multiple tested grades would provide, but the available measure points to a solid academic start for its students.
The student body of about three hundred fifty children is one of the smaller elementary buildings in the district. The composition is predominantly white, with a substantial Hispanic minority making up roughly one in five students, and small shares of Black, Asian, Native American, Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander, and multiracial students. More than half of the students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, a rate that places the school in a community with significant economic need. Data on special education identification and English learner status were not available, so a parent may want to follow up with the school on those supports.
Steadley Elementary sits on the west side of Carthage, the county seat of Jasper County. Carthage is a manufacturing and food-processing hub anchored by employers such as Leggett & Platt, H.E. Williams, Schreiber Foods, and Dyno Nobel. The community has a historic courthouse square, Victorian architecture, and a Carnegie library with a new maker-space annex that shares the Steadley family name. The town has seen modest population growth and recent public investments including a new high school building and a new city hospital, and the district completed a major renovation of the high school in the summer of 2024 using existing capital funds rather than a new tax. Housing in the area is below the national median price, and the typical mortgage payment is lower than the typical rent, which may matter to families considering whether to buy versus rent when choosing a school attendance area.
The early-grade-only structure of Steadley means children transition to another school in the district after third grade, so a parent should consider the feeder pattern. The district operates five elementary schools feeding into an intermediate center, a sixth-grade center, a junior high, and a senior high that opened new in the mid-2010s. The technical center adds career-pathway options for older students, but Steadley itself, as a K-3 building, focuses on foundational literacy and numeracy.
The school fits a family seeking a neighborhood primary school in a traditional small-city district with a manufacturing and agricultural base, where the early academic results are above average for the county but show more strength in math than reading at the third-grade level. A parent who wants to understand how the school supports students who are below proficiency, particularly in English language arts, may want to ask about intervention programs and reading support in the primary grades. The mix of families from different economic backgrounds is reflected in the free and reduced-price lunch rate, and the ethnic diversity is noticeable though not evenly distributed across groups. For a young child starting school, Steadley offers a contained early-elementary setting before moving into a larger district structure.
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