The top reported proficiency rate is 50% in Science. The lowest is 41% in Math.
Original Research by School Decision on Camden Elementary
Camden Elementary serves children from pre-kindergarten through second grade, making it one of the earliest entry points into the Benton County school system. Because the school covers only the youngest grades, the standardized test results that families often look for do not apply here; Tennessee’s state assessments begin in third grade. The most recent testing data on file comes from a single year over a decade and a half ago, before these children would have been enrolled, and is too old to carry any current meaning. A parent evaluating this school will need to look elsewhere—conversations with staff, classroom visits, or the school’s own communications—to gauge academic programming, because the public record offers no recent measure of student performance.
The student body is predominantly white, with small numbers of Hispanic, Black, multiracial, and other backgrounds represented. Enrollment is split across pre-K, kindergarten, first, and second grades, with second grade the largest group. The school does not report the share of students qualifying for free or reduced-price meals, nor the proportion receiving special education services or English learner support, so those economic and learning-need profiles are not visible in the data a parent can access here.
Camden, the town where the school sits, is the county seat of Benton County and a small, slow-growing community in rural West Tennessee. Its economy draws on two anchors: the Tennessee Valley Authority and the DuPont (now Chemours) titanium dioxide plant in nearby New Johnsonville, along with a Jones Plastic and Engineering manufacturing facility within town. Agriculture also remains a factor. The town has a compact downtown along U.S. Route 70 Business, but the built environment is auto-oriented, with low-density commercial strips and residential streets radiating outward. No public transit serves the town, and walkability is limited to the immediate downtown grid. Housing values in the area have risen in recent years; the typical home is priced below both the state and national benchmarks, making the community comparatively affordable.
The school itself is a regular public school, not a charter or magnet. It sits on its own campus, separate from the downtown core, following the pattern common to small Tennessee towns where school buildings occupy their own parcels. The district is Benton County, which includes other schools in Camden—a junior high and a high school—as well as schools in the smaller communities of Big Sandy and Holladay. There was no district-level brief in the available data, so any recent changes in district policy, leadership, or programming could not be examined.
Because the comparison set considers all districts in Benton County, and there is only one district, the comparison metrics for proficiency, graduation, and chronic absenteeism are all marked as not applicable. In practical terms, there is no neighboring district within the county to benchmark against.
For a family considering this school, the central facts are these: the school is an early-elementary building serving only the youngest children, set in a quiet, affordable, slow-growth town with a handful of industrial and utility employers. Academic outcomes are not publicly available for this grade band, so the school’s reputation, word of mouth among local families, and direct engagement with staff will be the primary sources of information. The student body is not diverse, and the town offers limited walkability or public transportation. A parent who values a small, familiar setting with very young children and who is comfortable learning about the school through firsthand inquiry rather than test scores may find it a reasonable fit.
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