Original Research by School Decision on Centerville Elem.
Centerville Elementary is the sole school in the Centerville R-I district, a regular public school serving kindergarten through eighth grade in the small, rural county seat of Reynolds County. The town itself is an extremely compact civic center for the surrounding Ozarks area, with county government, a public library, and the school integrated within the tiny settlement. The nearby West Fork Mine, a lead-zinc-silver-copper operation run by the Doe Run Company, is a major industrial presence and employer in the broader area, alongside Reynolds County government itself. The community is experiencing population decline, a trend reflected in the school’s size.
The school is very small across all its grades, with a modest total enrollment. Every student enrolled qualifies for free or reduced-price lunch, which signals a high level of economic need across the school community. The student body is entirely white. Information on the proportion of students receiving special education services or who are English learners was not reported in the available data. Because the school does not serve high school grades, it has no graduation rate to report.
State assessment results for the 2024-25 school year are suppressed for all tested grades and subjects, including math, English language arts, and science. The testing cohorts in each grade level were small; for example, the number of students tested in fifth-grade math and English language arts was in the single digits. State education agencies commonly suppress proficiency results in small schools to protect student privacy. As a result, no proficiency rates, average scale scores, or participation rates are available to the public for any subject at any grade level. This does not necessarily indicate poor performance, but a parent or community member will find it difficult to assess academic achievement through published state testing data alone. A parent may want to ask the school directly about how it tracks student progress and how it measures up against academic benchmarks in reading and math.
The available comparison data places this school within Reynolds County, which contains a small number of districts. Because the school’s proficiency data is missing, it cannot be positioned relative to other Reynolds County districts on academic performance. Similarly, the school does not have a four-year graduation rate or chronic absenteeism rate for comparison.
No information was available about the school’s course offerings, staffing numbers, discipline rates, attendance rates, or any specialized programs. The school’s Title I status was also not reported. These gaps mean that many of the factors families typically use to size up a school are not part of the public record for this one.
Centerville Elementary is a very small, rural, high-poverty school in a shrinking community. Its state testing data is entirely suppressed due to small cohort sizes, which leaves a significant blank in the picture of student learning. The school is the only option in the district for elementary and middle school students, and it serves as an integrated part of the local town fabric. For a family considering this school, the primary questions will need to be answered through direct conversation with the school itself, particularly around academic progress, school climate, and the kinds of opportunities available to students in a setting this small.
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