The top reported proficiency rate is 4% in English language arts.
Original Research by School Decision on Lewis and Clark Elem.
Lewis and Clark Elementary is a regular public school serving kindergarten through fifth grade in the Riverview Gardens School District, located in the northern part of St. Louis, Missouri. The school sits within St. Louis County, a large suburban and urban county that surrounds the independent city of St. Louis. For a family considering this school, the most immediate contextual factor is the district’s recent history: after a period of unaccredited status, Riverview Gardens received provisional accreditation in 2020, as publicly reported. That status carries real consequences under Missouri law, including tuition payments for students who transfer to accredited neighboring districts, and it is a fact that has weighed on local property values and family decisions about moving into the district.
The school itself is small for an elementary, with enrollment spread fairly evenly across grades K through five. Every single enrolled student qualifies for free or reduced-price lunch, a strong indicator that the community the school serves faces concentrated economic disadvantage. The student body is overwhelmingly Black, with a single white student reported; other racial and ethnic groups are not represented in the enrollment data. The school’s special population counts for students with disabilities and English learners were not available in the data reviewed, so a parent may want to ask the school directly about the services it offers for those groups.
Academically, the picture is very clear. Lewis and Clark Elementary participates in Missouri’s statewide MAP assessments in math, English language arts, and science. The state has suppressed most of the school’s proficiency results, citing small group sizes, but the few figures that were reported are very low. In fourth-grade English language arts, about four percent of tested students scored at or above the proficient level, and in fifth-grade science, about four percent did the same. No math proficiency rates were reported for any grade. When compared with other districts in St. Louis County, the school’s overall proficiency index sits in the bottom quartile. Many parents will want to discuss these results with the school and understand what instructional supports are in place. Chronic absenteeism data was not available, so that dimension of the school environment also remains a question a family may need to investigate directly.
The housing context for families looking at this area reflects the broader trends of St. Louis County. Home values in the school’s zip code are modest, well below both the county median and the national benchmark, and they have declined slightly over the past year. Rental prices are also below national averages, making the area relatively affordable compared to much of the region. The county housing market overall shows a moderate number of active listings and a typical time on market of just over a month, suggesting a balanced market without extreme competition.
St. Louis itself is a city with a diverse economic base, anchored by major employers such as Barnes-Jewish Hospital, Washington University Medical Center, the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, and the Federal Reserve Bank. The city also offers substantial civic and cultural institutions, including Forest Park, the Saint Louis Zoo, and the Saint Louis Art Museum. But the school is located in a part of St. Louis that is geographically within St. Louis County, not the independent city, and the immediate neighborhood context reflects the challenges of a district that has been working to regain full accreditation.
For a family, Lewis and Clark Elementary is a school where academic performance is a clear area of concern, and where the district's accreditation status adds another layer of complexity to the decision. The school serves a very high-poverty community, and its results on state assessments are among the lowest in the county. A parent considering this school would be well served to visit, talk to staff about how they are addressing these challenges, and understand what options exist within the district and under Missouri’s transfer policies.
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