The reported proficiency rate for Math is 37%.
Original Research by School Decision on Hartville Elem.
Hartville Elementary is a regular public school serving pre-kindergarten through fifth grade in the Hartville R-II district. It shares a main campus with the district’s middle and high schools. The school sits in a small rural county seat that functions as the governmental and commercial hub for a sparsely populated part of southern Missouri. The town lost a significant portion of its business district to a tornado years ago and has not returned to its previous commercial density. Population growth has been modest in recent years, following a longer period of decline.
The student body is overwhelmingly white. A substantial share of students qualifies for free or reduced-price lunch. The school’s enrollment spreads fairly evenly across grades, with slightly larger kindergarten and fifth grade groups than the others.
State testing results are available for math at grades four and five, but most other test data is suppressed for small groups. That suppression is common when the number of students tested is low, which is the case here at each grade level. The available math results show a divided picture. Fourth graders had a proficiency rate that was slightly above average relative to other grades nationally, while fifth graders had a lower proficiency rate. This means that a parent looking at a single grade’s performance may get a very different impression than a parent looking at the next grade up. Science results and all English language arts results were suppressed, so there is no publicly available picture of how students performed in reading or science at the school. A parent may want to ask the school directly about these subjects.
When compared against other districts in Wright County, the school’s combined proficiency across tested subjects and grades lands in the bottom quartile. That comparison covers only a small number of districts, and the gap between this school and the top of that set is noticeable. The district does not have a four-year graduation rate, because the elementary school does not serve high school grades.
No information was available on chronic absenteeism, discipline, course access, or staffing. The district brief turned up no recent changes of lasting parent relevance, and the school’s program offerings were not provided.
Hartville is a place where most of the town is within walking distance, though it remains a quiet rural community with limited street life. There is a lending library, a county courthouse, and a chamber of commerce that organizes community events. The main school campus sits on a separate site from the downtown business center. Housing values in the area are lower than the state average, and have declined somewhat recently.
For a family considering this school, the takeaway is that Hartville Elementary serves a small, predominantly white, low-income student population in a shrinking rural setting. State test data is thin, with only math results available for two grades, and those results are mixed. The school’s relative standing within its county is low. A parent looking for more complete academic picture, particularly in reading and science, would need to seek that information from the school.
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