The top reported proficiency rate is 23% in Math.
Original Research by School Decision on Higbee Elem.
Higbee Elementary serves children from preschool through fifth grade in the Higbee R-VIII district, a very small rural school system in Randolph County, Missouri. The school is a regular public school, not a charter or magnet, and its enrollment is modest for a K-5 building. The student body is predominantly white, with a small number of Hispanic students and a larger group identifying as two or more races.
The town of Higbee itself is a compact rural community with a population that has seen some fluctuation in recent years. It has a niche industrial base, including barrel-making and distilling businesses. The largest employment sectors locally are health care, food service, and retail. Housing values in the area are lower than the state average, and the homeownership rate exceeds the national average. The community is built around automobile use, with high car ownership per household and residents commuting alone to work. City offices sit on a downtown street, and given the town’s small size, the elementary school is likely near the town center.
State assessment data for Higbee Elementary is thin, with suppression of results for small testing groups. The Missouri Assessment Program (MAP) results that are reported publicly show that for fourth-grade math and fourth-grade English language arts, roughly a quarter of students scored at the proficient level. Results for third-grade and fifth-grade were suppressed because the number of students tested was too small to report. Science results for fifth grade were also suppressed. When compared to other districts in Randolph County, the school’s overall proficiency index across tested subjects and grades falls below the midpoint of the county. A parent should note that the county comparison is based on a small set of districts, and the school’s own numbers come from a single tested grade level; broader patterns are difficult to draw from this limited data.
Nearly half of the students at Higbee Elementary qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, a rate that tracks with the community’s modest economic context. Data on the share of students with disabilities and English learners was not available in the sources provided, so a parent may want to ask the school directly about those supports.
The district in which this school sits has experienced some significant financial and academic trends that are relevant to any family considering the school. Publicly reported figures show that per-student spending has decreased over four school years, as has per-student revenue, indicating a sustained reduction in the resources available for classrooms, staffing, and programs. The district’s graduation rate has also declined notably over five school years. These are district-wide trends, and while they apply most directly to the high school, they signal the financial and academic trajectory of the broader system that supports the elementary school.
Higbee Elementary is a small, rural school serving a predominantly white student body in a town with a modest economic base. The academic results that are visible show that in fourth grade, a quarter of students met state proficiency standards in both math and reading. That figure is below the midpoint of county school districts, and many of the school’s grade-level test results are suppressed due to group size, limiting what can be seen from the data alone. For a parent, the long-term financial direction of the district and the declining graduation rate are relevant context. The school itself has no high school grades, so the graduation rate applies to the district at large, not to this building. A family considering this school would likely want to discuss with the administration how the district’s spending trends affect the elementary program specifically, and what academic support systems are in place for students who are not yet at the proficient benchmark. The school’s very small size means that individual attention is possible, but it also means that comparative performance data will often be sparse.
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