The reported proficiency rate for Math is 27%.
Original Research by School Decision on North Mercer Elem.
North Mercer Elementary is a regular public school serving prekindergarten through grade six, located in the very small rural town of Mercer, Missouri. It sits within the North Mercer County R-III district and is the only elementary school feeding into the district’s high school. For a parent, the most immediate takeaway is the school’s size: enrollment is small, and the student body is overwhelmingly white. A substantial share of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, indicating a high level of economic need among the families the school serves.
State testing data for the most recent school year is sparse, and what is available requires careful reading. For grades three, four, and five in both math and English language arts, the school’s results were suppressed, a common practice when the number of students tested is very small and could identify individuals. No proficiency rates are reported for those grade-level groups. For grade six in math, a proficiency rate was reported and it is low, meaning a modest share of sixth-graders met the state’s proficient benchmark. For the other tested subjects and grades, including all English language arts and science, the data was suppressed or missing, leaving a very limited picture of overall academic performance. A parent wanting a fuller view of how students are progressing academically would need to seek out trend data directly from the school or from the district office, because the available state scores are too restricted to draw a confident conclusion.
The school does not serve high school grades, so there is no graduation rate to report. Information on chronic absenteeism is also absent from the data. These gaps mean that two of the most commonly used indicators of school health are not available for this school, which may be a concern for a family making a decision.
The town of Mercer itself is in a county defined by agriculture. The town’s population has been declining, and housing values are modest. The county is one of the least populated in Missouri, and the wider economic base is farming and livestock. The district’s brief turned up no recent major changes such as a building referendum, a curriculum overhaul, or a significant budget shift, so a parent should not expect any recent disruption at the district level.
When placed alongside the other districts in Mercer County, the school’s overall proficiency index positions it above the midpoint. This is a meaningful distinction within a very small comparison set of only two districts, so it is a relative strength within its immediate area, but it is a narrow basis for a wider judgment.
For a family considering this school, the central facts are a small, rural setting with a high-poverty population, a student body that is nearly all white, a fairly limited set of test results that are mostly suppressed, and one available sixth-grade math score that is low. There is no data on class size, program offerings, or student support services in the available records. A parent should expect to ask the school directly about classroom instruction, enrichment, special education, and how the school addresses the academic needs of its students, because the public data alone does not answer those questions. The school may be a perfectly good fit for a family already in the area, especially one who values a small-town environment and knows the staff, but the available numbers do not provide a strong independent signal about student achievement.
See more original research from School Decision →