The reported proficiency rate for Math is 38%.
Original Research by School Decision on Nodaway-holt Ms/hs
Nodaway-Holt MS/HS serves grades seven through twelve in the small, rural incorporated town of Graham in southwestern Nodaway County, Missouri. The school is a regular public school, not a charter or magnet, and it sits at the center of community life: the building also houses the district headquarters for Nodaway-Holt R-VII, and the elementary school is in Maitland, a separate small town nearby. The community itself is very small, with a population that has declined over the past couple of decades before a slight recent rebound, and the town is primarily residential with minimal commercial activity. A post office that had been closed for several years reopened in 2020, marking the most notable recent civic development. The school is essentially the town’s main institutional anchor.
The student body is small. It is overwhelmingly white, with a very small number of students identifying as Hispanic, Black, American Indian or Alaska Native, or two or more races. About half of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, which is a substantial share and places the school in a moderate-socioeconomic context for its rural setting. The school’s grade span from middle through high school means that students can spend six years in the same building, a setting that can offer continuity and a close-knit environment for families who value that.
State testing data for the 2024–25 school year is limited, and this is largely because of the small cohort sizes. Missouri’s accountability system suppresses results when the tested group is small enough that individual students could be identified, and many of this school’s grade-level and subject results are suppressed for that reason. In grade eight math, the one reported result that was not suppressed shows that roughly two out of five students scored at the proficient level or above. That places the school above the midpoint among the county’s districts for overall proficiency across tested subjects and grades, though the comparison set includes only six districts and the top of the range in the county is considerably higher. No results were reported for the seventh-grade tests in any subject, nor for eighth-grade English language arts or science, all suppressed due to small numbers. A parent looking to understand the school’s academic picture will find little state testing data to go on, which is not unusual for a school this size, but it does mean that classroom performance, teacher assessments, and direct conversations with the school become more important sources of information.
Graduation rate data was not available in the provided information, so it is not possible to speak to how many students finish in four years. The school does not appear to offer a reported chronic absenteeism rate, either, so that dimension of student engagement is also unclear. Because the school serves only seventh through twelfth grade, it does not have the early-grade testing that some other schools provide, and the compressed grade band means there is no elementary-level data to pull from.
The district has entered into a comprehensive athletic cooperative agreement with the neighboring West Nodaway School District, which allows students to combine rosters for football, basketball, and track and field. This is a practical arrangement for a small district that might otherwise struggle to field full teams on its own, and it shapes the interscholastic sports experience for students here. A parent considering Nodaway-Holt will want to understand how the cooperative works in practice, including transportation and practice schedules between the two districts.
Graham itself offers very limited commercial services. There is no public transit, and no parks or libraries were identified in available sources. The town is about a short drive from Maryville, the county seat, which is home to Northwest Missouri State University and provides more employment, shopping, and cultural options. For families who are comfortable with a rural setting where the school is the center of daily life and where students come from a small, stable peer group, Nodaway-Holt MS/HS fits that mold. For those seeking wide academic course options, a diverse peer environment, or a place with a lot of publicly available performance data, it may feel thin. The absence of much state testing data means that a family will need to rely on visiting the school, talking to staff, and forming their own impression of the academic experience in the classroom.
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