The top reported proficiency rate is 51% in Science. The lowest is 21% in English language arts.
Original Research by School Decision on Clark Co. Middle
Clark County Middle in Kahoka serves grades six through eight as a regular public school in the Clark County R-I district. It sits in a small, rural farming community that is also the county seat in northeast Missouri. The town has a compact layout centered around a City Square, with civic anchors like three parks, a public library, and a farmers market pavilion, but no public transit system was noted in publicly available information. The district operates two elementary schools alongside this middle school and the high school.
The enrollment at Clark County Middle is small for its grade band, with about that many students spread across sixth, seventh, and eighth grades. A substantial share of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch. Racially, the student body is almost entirely white, with only a handful of students identifying as Black, Hispanic, or two or more races, and no Asian, American Indian, or Native Hawaiian students identified in the data. Data on special populations like students with IEPs or English learners was not available, so a parent may want to ask the school about those numbers directly.
State assessment results for the most recent testing year show a mixed picture across subjects and grades. In math, sixth graders had a proficiency rate at a level that falls roughly in the middle range of what many middle schools report, while seventh graders were at a notably lower level and eighth graders were between those two points. In English language arts, the pattern was similar: sixth grade proficiency was at a modest level, seventh grade was lower, and the eighth-grade rate was suppressed by the state and not reported. Science, tested only in eighth grade, showed a substantially higher proficiency rate. The eighth-grade ELA result being suppressed means the state withheld the figure, often for privacy reasons related to group size, so a parent cannot compare that one metric. Taken together, the results are uneven, with math and especially science in eighth grade being relative bright spots while reading proficiency across grades is an area a family may want to explore with the school to understand its support strategies.
Because Clark County Middle serves only the middle-school grades, there is no graduation rate to report. Chronic absenteeism data and discipline data were also not available, so a parent would need to rely on conversations with the school about those aspects of the school climate. No information about course offerings, such as advanced, career, or fine arts programs, was present in the data. The district brief turned up no recent parent-relevant changes like boundary adjustments or program launches, and the school does not appear to have released a strategic plan or improvement initiative that would show up in a general search.
On a year-over-year basis, proficiency rates were reported for a single year only, so no trend line can be drawn. The district sits alone in Clark County when it comes to comparisons among districts, meaning the county has only this one R-I district to look at, and any neighboring-district comparisons within the county are not possible. Housing in the area is meaningfully more affordable than both the state and national benchmarks, with typical home values well below the state median. This pattern is consistent with the rural setting and relatively small local economy, where county government, the school district, and the town itself are likely the principal employers.
A family considering Clark County Middle will find a small, predominantly white, rural school with a mixed academic record that shows particular softness in reading. The math and science results offer some counterweight, and the school may have strengths in other areas that are not captured in the available data. Because the available metrics are limited to state testing and basic enrollment, a parent would benefit from visiting, asking about special education and English learner services, and requesting specifics on discipline rates and extracurricular offerings to fill in the gaps.
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