The top reported proficiency rate is 24% in English language arts. The lowest is 14% in Math.
Original Research by School Decision on Hawthorne Elem.
Hawthorne Elementary serves grades one through five in the Mexico 59 school district, housed in a regular public school building on the west side of Mexico, Missouri. It is one of several elementary campuses in the district, which also includes Eugene Field Elementary and the McMillan Early Learning Center. The school’s enrollment is large for a grade band that excludes kindergarten, and the student body is predominantly white, with a Hispanic share of roughly one in eight students and a smaller Black share. A substantial share of students also identify as two or more races. Every enrolled student qualifies for free or reduced-price lunch, a marker of the economic need that runs through the school community.
State assessment results, drawn from the Missouri Assessment Program, show proficiency rates that are very low across all three tested subjects. In math, the share of students scoring proficient or above falls further with each successive grade, landing at a much smaller share by fifth grade. In English language arts, proficiency is somewhat higher than in math across all grades, but still reaches only about a quarter of students by fifth grade. Science, tested only in fifth grade, shows a similar rate. The overall proficiency index, which averages these results across tested grades and subjects, places Hawthorne well below the midpoint among Audrain County’s handful of districts, in the bottom quartile of that small set. A parent considering this school will want to talk directly with the principal and teachers about the strategies the school uses to move these numbers, particularly in math, where the drop-off across grades is pronounced.
Because Hawthorne’s span stops at fifth grade, there is no graduation rate to report. Chronic absenteeism data was also not available in the source materials, so a family hoping to understand attendance patterns will need to ask the school for that information directly.
Mexico itself is a small city and the county seat of Audrain County, with a historic downtown square anchored by the courthouse. Its economy once centered on the fire brick industry, but both major refractory plants closed years ago, and the population has been relatively stable with a slight recent decline. Today manufacturing, agriculture, and saddle horse breeding play important roles. The city is located at the intersection of U.S. Route 54 and state routes 22 and 15, roughly midway between St. Louis and Columbia, and the four-lane highway connection was secured after the city lost a bid for a major auto plant in the 1980s, a development that now supports ongoing industrial recruitment. Home values in the area are well below the national median, and housing costs relative to income are manageable, which may matter to families looking at the district’s elementary options.
No recent district-level changes such as bond issues, tax levies, or curriculum reforms were found in a search of public records, so there is no indication of major shifts in resources or programming on the horizon. Hawthorne operates as a regular public school with no charter or magnet designation, and it is not identified as a Title I school in the available directory data, though the universal free-lunch eligibility rate suggests it would qualify for such supports.
For a family weighing this school, the core tension is between a peer environment marked by high economic need and a very low proficiency picture on state exams, set in a small city with an affordable housing market and a stable if not growing population. The school’s academic results are a clear soft spot, and anyone considering enrollment should press for details on how the school addresses skill gaps, especially in mathematics, where the decline from third to fifth grade is steep. The district’s other elementary campuses may present a different profile, so a close comparison within Mexico 59 would be a natural next step.
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