The top reported proficiency rate is 41% in Math. The lowest is 40% in Science.
Original Research by School Decision on St. James Middle
St. James Middle School serves students in grades six through eight within the St. James R-I district, a single school system that also includes an elementary school and John F. Hodge High School. The middle school is housed on Tiger Drive, part of the same campus area that anchors the district’s secondary education in this small city.
St. James itself is a slow-growing community in Phelps County, known for its heavy tree cover and a nickname, Forest City of the Ozarks. It has a historic small-town character, with a compact layout and a business district along its main corridors. The town blends quiet residential neighborhoods with a steady industrial base that includes manufacturers, a distribution center, and local wineries. Old Route 66 runs through the community, and I-44 provides primary highway access. The population has been increasing modestly in recent years. The city maintains two industrial parks and actively recruits employers, which shapes the local economy. Maramec Spring Park, a large privately operated park owned by the James Foundation, is a major recreational anchor nearby. A search for recent district-wide changes or strategic priorities turned up little of lasting impact, so the district appears to have been operating without major upheaval in the near term.
The middle school enrolls a student body that is predominantly white, with small shares of Black, Hispanic, Asian, and multiracial students. A substantial share of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, which signals a level of economic need within the community. The school is a regular public school, not a charter or magnet. Data on special education classification and English learner status were not provided, so a parent may want to ask the school directly about those support services.
State testing results from the Missouri Assessment Program show a pattern of performance that varies by grade and subject. In math, sixth-grade scores landed above half of students reaching proficiency, while seventh-grade scores were lower and eighth-grade scores fell notably further below that mark. In English language arts, the share of students meeting proficiency was in a range that straddled the midpoint across the three grades, with sixth-grade results the strongest and seventh-grade the weakest of the three. In science, tested only in eighth grade, just over two in five students scored at proficient or above. When measured across all tested subjects and grades, the school’s overall proficiency index places it below the midpoint among the four districts in Phelps County. That comparison set is small, and the range between the lowest and highest district is fairly narrow, so the difference between schools in the county is not a wide gap.
This is a mid-sized middle school serving a community where manufacturing, distribution, and small-town civic life set the context. The academic picture is mixed, with some grade levels performing better than others and room for improvement in several areas. A parent may want to discuss with the school how it supports students who are not yet at grade level, particularly in eighth-grade math where results are softest. There is no high school or graduation data here because the school stops at eighth grade. The district that this middle school feeds into is a single system covering the same town, so families looking ahead can follow the same cohort into the high school.
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