The top reported proficiency rate is 11% in English language arts. The lowest is 9% in Science.
Original Research by School Decision on Meramec Elem.
Meramec Elementary sits in the city of St. Louis, serving students from prekindergarten through fifth grade as a regular public school in the St. Louis City district. The school’s enrollment is small, and the student body is heavily concentrated in a single demographic: a large majority of students are Black, with a handful of white and Hispanic students. Every student at Meramec qualifies for free or reduced-price lunch, reflecting a high-poverty environment. The school does not have charter or magnet status, and its Title I status was not listed in the data we examined.
State testing results on Missouri’s MAP assessments are available for most tested grades, though a clear picture is complicated by data suppression. In mathematics, results for grades three, four, and five were all suppressed — the state does not release proficiency rates when the tested group is very small. For English language arts, grade three results were also suppressed. For grade four, the share of students scoring proficient or advanced was low. For grade five, that share was higher but still quite modest. In fifth-grade science, the proportion of students reaching the proficient level was low. Overall, when looking at proficiency across tested subjects and grades, Meramec ranks in the bottom quartile relative to districts in St. Louis city. A parent may want to ask the school for a more detailed look at student academic progress, because the official numbers here point to a school where a large majority of students are not yet meeting state benchmarks in reading, math, or science.
Because Meramec serves only elementary grades, there is no graduation rate to report. Data on chronic absenteeism, discipline, staffing, and course access were not available in the materials we reviewed, so the picture of daily school climate and support systems remains incomplete.
The school is located in the city’s Meramec neighborhood, part of St. Louis proper. St. Louis is an independent city with a mix of residential and commercial districts. Its economy draws on service, manufacturing, trade, transportation, and aviation, and it hosts a number of major employers, including federal agencies, Barnes-Jewish Hospital, and several research universities. The city also has many civic and cultural anchors, such as Forest Park, the Gateway Arch, and the Saint Louis Zoo. Housing in the zip code that serves Meramec shows home values that are below the state median and have seen a slight decline from a year ago; rents have risen modestly. The area’s affordability, relative to the national market, is notable.
No recent district-level changes of lasting impact to families were found in publicly reported sources for the St. Louis City district. The district brief turned up basic profile and demographic data but no announcements about boundary shifts, program closures, or major curriculum overhauls that would affect Meramec directly.
For a family considering this school, the evidence shows a neighborhood elementary that serves a population with very high economic need. Academic proficiency rates, where reported, are below typical levels for the city, and math results for the upper grades were not released due to small test-taker counts — something that itself may signal a very small cohort of students reaching that grade. The school’s small size could mean more individual attention, but the data do not confirm that. A parent would want to visit, talk to the principal, and ask about reading and math interventions, how the school supports the large share of students who are not yet proficient, and what enrichment is available. The community context of St. Louis offers many cultural assets and a diverse local economy, but the immediate academic picture at Meramec is one that calls for careful inquiry.
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