The top reported proficiency rate is 71% in Science. The lowest is 44% in English language arts.
Original Research by School Decision on Moshannon Valley El Sch
Moshannon Valley Elementary School serves kindergarten through sixth grade in Houtzdale, a small former coal-and-railroad borough in southern Clearfield County. The school sits on a campus outside the historic downtown grid, on Green Acre Road, and enrolls a small cohort of elementary students drawn almost entirely from the local community.
The school's student body reflects the borough's composition. Every student qualifies for free or reduced-price lunch, indicating widespread economic need across the school community. The enrollment is overwhelmingly white, with students of color present in very small numbers. The elementary grades are relatively balanced in size across kindergarten through sixth grade, with a modest increase in the sixth-grade cohort. No data on students with disabilities or English learners was available to describe special-population support.
In state testing, the school's performance is mixed. In math on the Pennsylvania System of School Assessment for grades three through six, roughly half of tested students scored at the proficient level or above. In English language arts, proficiency was slightly lower, with fewer than half of students meeting the state standard. Science testing, administered during the prior school year, showed notably stronger results, with proficiency approaching three-quarters of the tested cohort. Across all tested subjects, the school's overall proficiency index places it in the top quartile among the eight districts in Clearfield County, a meaningful distinction that suggests the school is performing above the median for its regional peers despite the variability across subjects.
The disparity between math and English language arts proficiency on one hand and science on the other may reflect program emphasis, instructional focus, or differences in testing cohorts. A parent may want to explore with the school what factors drive the science results and what reading and mathematics instruction looks like in the classroom.
Houtzdale itself is a place of long-term population decline and reinvestment rather than growth. The borough peaked during the coal boom and has since contracted substantially. The housing stock is almost entirely pre-World War II single-family homes on a compact grid. Current property values in the 16651 zip code are well below state and national benchmarks, making homeownership affordable by national standards. The dominant employer in the area is the State Correctional Institution–Houtzdale, with the school district and local small businesses providing additional work. A recent civic bright spot is Trella Memorial Park, the first public park in the borough, created in 2020.
The Moshannon Valley School District recently entered a cyber education partnership with another district's online campus, giving families an in-network remote learning option as an alternative to cyber charter schools. In 2025, Clearfield County restructured its property tax assessment ratio, which meant the school district adjusted its millage rate to keep overall revenue flat; homeowners should see no change in their total tax bill from this ratio shift, but the assessed value and millage figures on tax statements will both look different going forward.
The elementary school is the feeder to Moshannon Valley Junior/Senior High School, also located on the Green Acre Road campus. This is a small-district, place-based school environment where students live in a tight-knit rural community and remain with their cohort across grade spans.
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