The top reported proficiency rate is 54% in English language arts. The lowest is 51% in Math.
Original Research by School Decision on Cole Camp Elem.
Cole Camp Elementary serves kindergarten through sixth grade in the small, historic community of Cole Camp, Missouri, a town in rural Benton County that residents call the “Festival City” for its German-heritage celebrations. The school is the elementary arm of the Cole Camp R-I district, and its enrollment of several hundred students makes it a relatively small building where the same teachers see the same families year after year. The student body is overwhelmingly white, and more than half of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, giving the school a modest economic profile.
On state assessments, the school shows a split picture that varies noticeably by grade and subject. In third grade, English language arts proficiency was solid, while math proficiency came in lower. Fourth grade reversed that pattern, with math proficiency notably higher than English. Fifth-grade results were suppressed for both English and science, making it difficult to get a full read on that cohort. Sixth grade showed strong math proficiency but a softer result in English. Taken together, the school lands above the midpoint among Benton County districts on overall proficiency, but a parent looking at individual grade levels will see real unevenness. The fourth-grade class appears to be the strongest on record, while fifth grade is essentially a blind spot the school may want to clarify.
No high school offerings and no graduation rate apply here, since the building ends at grade six. Students move on to Cole Camp Middle School and then Cole Camp High School, and some families also use the local Lutheran School Association for grades K through eight, with many of those students entering the public high school later.
The town itself is very small and primarily residential, with a historic downtown listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Housing values sit well below the state median, making Cole Camp a more affordable place to buy a home than many Missouri towns. The typical home price in the area is meaningfully lower than the state average, and the town has seen modest appreciation over the past year. The combination of lower home prices and a small-town setting with a walking-distance downtown may appeal to families seeking a quieter, lower-cost entry point.
The district brief turned up no recent referendums, curriculum shifts, or property tax changes of note. The school and district appear to be operating without any major public controversies or announced changes. For a parent, the core question here is fit for an elementary program that has some strong grade-level results and some weaker ones, in a town that is small, historically anchored, and affordable but without the breadth of programming or peer diversity a larger suburban district might offer. A visit to see how the school addresses the variability in its fifth-grade results and how the transition to middle school works would be time well spent.
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