The top reported proficiency rate is 30% in Math. The lowest is 21% in English language arts.
Original Research by School Decision on Singleton Es
Singleton ES is the lone elementary school in the Arkoma district, serving prekindergarten through fifth grade in a small town that sits just across the Oklahoma-Arkansas line from Fort Smith. The school is housed in a building that includes a Works Progress Administration structure listed on the National Register of Historic Places, and the community itself was laid out as a residential suburb of Fort Smith more than a century ago. Nothing in the data suggests major recent changes to the district; the district brief found little to report, so this account focuses on what the school offers today.
The student body is small. Enrollment runs under two hundred children, spread across grades PK through five with the largest group in kindergarten. Racially, the school is predominantly white, with a substantial share of students who identify as two or more races and a smaller presence of Hispanic students. Black, Asian, and Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander students each make up a very small portion or none at all. Data on students with disabilities and English learners was not available in the profile, a gap that may stem from the school’s size and the state’s suppression rules for small groups.
State testing results from the 2024-25 school year offer a mixed picture. Oklahoma uses the OSTP assessment, and the school saw a change in cut scores for math and English language arts that year, which makes direct year-over-year comparisons unreliable. For the grades and subjects where results were reported, proficiency rates were modest. In fourth-grade math, roughly two out of every five students scored at the proficient or above level. Third-grade math proficiency was lower, at about one in five. Fifth-grade math results were suppressed, likely because the group was too small to report. In English language arts, fourth-grade proficiency was just over one in four, and fifth-grade proficiency was below one in six. Third-grade ELA results were also suppressed. Fifth-grade science showed one in four students reaching proficiency.
When compared with other districts in Le Flore County, however, Singleton ES sits in the top quartile for overall proficiency across tested subjects and grades. That means that while the raw percentages are low in absolute terms, the school’s performance is above the typical level for the county. The county-wide median proficiency index is well below the national average, so this top-quartile position reflects a relative strength within a region where many schools face similar challenges. A parent may want to ask the school about its approach to instruction in the early grades, especially in reading and math, and about how it supports students who are not yet meeting proficiency benchmarks.
The school does not offer programs like Advanced Placement or career pathways common in high schools, because it serves only elementary grades. That is a simple structural fact, not a deficiency. The absence of a graduation rate is also expected for a PK-05 school.
Beyond the school itself, Arkoma is a small residential town where most employed residents commute to Fort Smith. The town has seen a long-term population decline from its peak several decades ago, though recent estimates suggest a slight uptick in the last few years. Housing values are well below the state and national benchmarks, and the monthly mortgage cost for a typical home would be modest, making the area relatively affordable. The town has limited commercial amenities; most shopping, medical care, and employment opportunities are a short drive away in Arkansas.
For a family considering Singleton ES, the school offers a small, close-knit setting where children move through the elementary grades in the same building. The community is quiet and residential, and the school sits near the state line, giving easy access to the larger job and service base of Fort Smith. The test results suggest that the school’s academic performance, while low when measured against state or national standards, is competitive within its own county. A parent looking for a school with strong relative standing in a rural, low-cost area may find this a reasonable fit, but should probe the school directly about how it addresses early literacy and numeracy gaps given the proficiency data.
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