The top reported proficiency rate is 10% in English language arts. The lowest is 3% in Science.
Original Research by School Decision on Gibson Elem.
Gibson Elementary is a regular public school in St. Louis, Missouri, serving kindergarten through fifth grade as part of the Riverview Gardens School District. The school is located in the northern part of the city, within St. Louis County but inside the independent city of St. Louis itself.
The student body is small for an elementary school serving six grade levels. Nearly every student at Gibson qualifies for free or reduced-price lunch, a marker of high economic need that sets the school apart even within a district where poverty is widespread. The racial composition is overwhelmingly Black, with only a handful of students from other backgrounds. This degree of demographic concentration gives Gibson a particular peer environment and should be considered by families weighing the kind of community their child will experience day to day.
State assessment results from the 2024-25 school year are available for grades three through five in math and English language arts, and for grade five in science. Across all tested subjects and grades, the share of students scoring proficient or above is very low. In third-grade math, about six percent of students reached that benchmark, and in fifth-grade math about three percent did. In English language arts, about twelve percent of third graders and thirteen percent of fifth graders scored proficient, while fourth-grade ELA proficiency stood at about five percent. In fifth-grade science, approximately three percent of students scored proficient.
When placed alongside other districts in St. Louis County, Gibson’s overall proficiency index falls in the bottom quartile. This is a district-level comparison set of twenty-four districts; the school’s index is well below the county median. The data does not include information on chronic absenteeism or discipline, and as an elementary school, there is no graduation rate to report.
The district itself has been through significant accreditation changes. According to publicly reported information, Riverview Gardens was unaccredited for a period and received provisional accreditation in 2020. In Missouri, an unaccredited district must pay for students to transfer to accredited neighboring districts, which has historically affected family decisions about residency. Parents considering Gibson should be aware that the district’s accreditation status continues to be a factor in the local education landscape. The district brief did not identify other recent programmatic changes, staffing shifts, or new initiatives.
St. Louis is an independent city with a diverse economy that includes major employers such as the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, and Barnes-Jewish Hospital, as well as research universities like Washington University in St. Louis and Saint Louis University. The city’s civic and cultural anchors include the Gateway Arch, Forest Park, the Saint Louis Zoo, and several museums. Housing in the zip code covering Gibson’s attendance area is notably affordable relative to national and state benchmarks, with home values that have seen a modest year-over-year decline and rents that have edged upward. The county-level housing market shows a slight increase in active listings and a dip in median listing prices, suggesting a buyer-friendly environment. For a family moving to the area, Gibson Elementary sits in a part of St. Louis where housing costs are low, but the local housing market’s trajectory and the district’s accreditation context are worth investigating directly.
Program offerings at Gibson were not available in the data. The school does not appear to have a magnet or charter designation. Because it serves only elementary grades, there are no course-access metrics or advanced placement options to report. A parent may want to ask the school directly about extracurriculars, enrichment, and support services, as those details were not present in the records reviewed.
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