The top reported proficiency rate is 0% in Math.
Original Research by School Decision on Htrs Middle School
HTRS Middle School, part of the Humboldt Table Rock Steinauer district in southeast Nebraska, serves students in grade six through eight. With a small enrollment, the school is the kind of place where there would be natural familiarity among students and staff. The student body is overwhelmingly white, with a very small number of American Indian or Alaska Native and Black students, and the data did not report any Hispanic, Asian, or multiracial students. About a third of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, a rate that gives a meaningful but not dominant share of the student body a need for support.
The most direct way to understand student performance here is through state assessment results, but those results present a picture that requires careful interpretation. The school's proficiency rates in math, English language arts, and science were all reported at zero percent across every tested grade level in the most recent data. That is an extremely unusual finding. While a weak performance would still produce a positive number, a zero percent proficiency rate across all subjects and grades typically flags a deeper issue with how the data was recorded, reported, or whether the student population taking the test was too small to yield a meaningful result. The multi-year academic trend data provides a wider view: that same data shows the school's average proficiency in English language arts was above sixty percent earlier in the same year, and math proficiency was near seventy percent earlier as well. These are strong numbers that contradict the zero percent figure for the same year. The discrepancy suggests that the reported zero percent for each individual grade level may stem from a reporting or suppression issue rather than a true measure of student learning. A parent would need to contact the school or the Nebraska Department of Education directly to clarify what the actual performance was for that year.
A multi-year trend that does appear in the data shows that the school's combined proficiency across subjects has fluctuated. That trend line is not steady but moves up and down, which is common in a very small school where a single cohort's characteristics can swing the average noticeably from year to year. The comparison to other districts in Richardson County, which has only two districts, placed this school in the bottom quartile on overall proficiency, but that classification is unreliable given the data conflict and the very small number of districts being compared.
The community context for HTRS Middle School is the town of Humboldt, a small, declining rural village in Richardson County. The town's population has been shrinking for decades, and recent investment has focused on preservation and infrastructure maintenance rather than growth. Housing values are very low relative to state and national benchmarks, making it a relatively affordable place to live. The town square with its historic bandstand and buildings is the civic and commercial center, and public amenities such as the municipal auditorium, library, swimming pool, and city park are within a compact downtown footprint. There is no public transit, and daily life depends on personal vehicles. The school district is described as the largest employer in the area, which underscores how much the school anchors the local community.
The district itself, Humboldt Table Rock Steinauer Public Schools, did not have publicly reported recent strategic changes, boundary adjustments, or program additions. A parent looking for recent direction from the district would find little to go on beyond the basic existence of the schools.
For a family deciding whether HTRS Middle School fits, the main takeaway is that the test data is opaque and needs clarification. The school is very small, which can be a strong fit for a child who thrives in a close-knit setting where teachers know each student well, and it is located in a quiet, low-cost rural town that is not experiencing growth. The school's academic offerings are not described in the available data, so a parent would need to ask directly about course options, elective choices, and whether there are any advanced or remedial programs. The middle school does not serve high school grades, so there is no graduation rate to evaluate. A family moving to the area or choosing this school should start by speaking with the principal or a teacher to get a clear, honest account of what the school day actually looks like and how the district handles the challenge of serving a small student population.
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