The top reported proficiency rate is 53% in Math. The lowest is 32% in English language arts.
Original Research by School Decision on Jefferson Elem.
Jefferson Elementary is a regular public school serving kindergarten through fifth grade in the Joplin Schools district, located in Joplin, Missouri. Joplin is a mid-sized regional hub city in the southwestern corner of the state, historically a mining boomtown that now functions as a service center for a multi-state area. The city has a largely car-dependent layout, with a historic downtown core and suburban-style development. The school sits at an address on McKinley Avenue within the city.
The school's enrollment is on the smaller side for a K-5 building, with a student body that is predominantly white. A substantial share of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, a common measure of economic need. The student composition also includes smaller shares of students who are multiracial, Hispanic, and other backgrounds, including American Indian or Alaska Native, Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander, Black, and Asian students. Data on the number of students with disabilities or who are English learners was not available, so a parent may want to ask the school directly about the availability of special education and language support services.
Missouri’s state assessment results for the most recent testing year paint a mixed picture. In third grade mathematics, a little over half of students scored at a proficient or advanced level. In third grade English language arts, roughly one in three students reached that same benchmark. Results for fourth and fifth grade in both math and English language arts, as well as for fifth grade science, were suppressed for privacy reasons, likely because the tested groups were small. Because the data is limited to only the third-grade results, it is difficult to draw a firm conclusion about overall academic performance across the school. The school's overall proficiency index, which averages the available scores, places Jefferson below the midpoint when compared to other elementary schools in Jasper County. This is a soft spot, and a parent considering the school may want to look into this further with the school, particularly to understand what happens with achievement as students move into the upper elementary grades.
Because this is an elementary school, there is no graduation rate, and measures like chronic absenteeism were not available in the data. The school is not a charter or magnet school. Information about specific program offerings, such as gifted education, music, art, or after-school activities, was not provided. A parent should expect to ask Jefferson about the range of enrichment it provides beyond the core curriculum.
A parent-relevant change in the district, from publicly reported sources, is the opening of Dover Hill Elementary in early 2023. That new school replaced two older buildings, Columbia and West Central elementary schools, and redrew attendance boundaries. A family living in Joplin should confirm which zones feed into Jefferson, as boundary adjustments from that consolidation could affect their address.
Overall, Jefferson Elementary presents as a small, economically diverse neighborhood school in part of a regional hub city. The academic picture from state testing is incomplete, with a solid result in third grade math and a weaker one in third grade reading, but without comparable data for other grades a full assessment is not possible from this information alone. The school’s district has undergone recent consolidation, so understanding the current attendance boundaries is an essential step for any family researching this area.
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