The top reported proficiency rate is 34% in English language arts. The lowest is 32% in Math.
Original Research by School Decision on Houston Middle
Houston Middle School sits in the heart of Houston, the county seat of Texas County in the Missouri Ozarks. It is a regular public school serving grades six through eight, part of the Houston R-I district, which is the largest school district in Texas County. The town itself is a small, compact rural community where streets mix historic houses with new single-family construction, and the downtown holds a handful of small boutiques and spas. The surrounding Mark Twain National Forest and nearby rivers shape outdoor life, and the city is working on a downtown development authority, a recreation center, and a county-wide early childhood education initiative. The school building is integrated into the town rather than isolated on a separate campus.
Enrollment is modest for a middle school serving three grade levels. The student body is predominantly white, with a small share of Hispanic students and a slightly larger share of students who identify as two or more races. About three in five students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, a rate that signals a substantial share of families with lower income. Data on students with disabilities and English learners was not available in the materials reviewed.
On the Missouri Assessment Program, the school’s proficiency rates across tested subjects and grades place it above the midpoint among districts in Texas County. That county-wide comparison is the relevant one here, and it shows Houston Middle performing in the upper half of its local peers. In math, proficiency rates were modest across all three grades, with the eighth-grade rate the highest of the three. In English language arts, the sixth-grade rate was lower than the seventh-grade rate; the eighth-grade ELA result was suppressed from public reporting, so a full picture is not possible. In eighth-grade science, about one in three students scored proficient or above. A parent considering this school should be aware that while the school compares favorably within Texas County, the absolute proficiency levels are in a range that many families would want to examine more closely and discuss with school staff.
Because this is a middle school, there is no graduation rate to report, and no data on chronic absenteeism or discipline was available. Program offerings such as advanced coursework, career exploration, or extracurriculars were not detailed in the source material, so that dimension is absent from this account.
Housing in the area is relatively affordable compared to national benchmarks, with home values well below the state average. The local economy includes Texas County Memorial Hospital, the school district itself, and municipal employment as major anchors, and rental occupancy is consistently high, reflecting a tight market.
Houston Middle School serves a small, rural community where the school is woven into the town’s fabric. Academic performance is somewhere in the middle tier among the county’s districts, but the absolute rates of proficiency are low enough that a family moving into Houston should seek out current information from the school about instruction, support services, and how the school addresses the academic needs of students across the board. The missing pieces such as special education and English learner data, as well as any details on programs, are gaps worth filling before making a decision.
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