The top reported proficiency rate is 45% in Social studies. The lowest is 35% in English language arts.
Original Research by School Decision on Rush Strong Elementary
Rush Strong Elementary, a regular public school in Jefferson County, serves students from pre-kindergarten through eighth grade in the unincorporated community of Strawberry Plains. The school sits within a community that has transformed over the decades from an agricultural crossroads to a suburban corridor shaped by Interstate 40 and the growth of nearby cities like Knoxville, Morristown, and Jefferson City. The area has seen sustained commercial and residential development, particularly around the I-40 exits, and the school itself draws from a part of Strawberry Plains that falls within Jefferson County’s jurisdiction, one of three county school systems serving the broader tri-county CDP.
The student body is overwhelmingly white, with small Hispanic and multiracial shares. Enrollment runs from a modest kindergarten cohort through a larger sixth-grade group, tapering upward to the eighth grade, giving the school a full pre-K-through-middle-school grade span. This means students can attend the same building from their earliest school years through the end of middle school, a feature that provides continuity for families who value a single, familiar setting across many years.
Academically, the school’s performance on the state’s TNReady assessments, in the most recent year available, shows a mixed picture. On the stronger end, science proficiency was meaningfully higher, and social studies proficiency was stronger still, both areas where a clear majority of tested students did not reach the proficient threshold, but where the school’s performance was notably higher than in math and English language arts. The math and ELA proficiency rates were weaker, with about a third of students meeting the state’s proficient-or-above bar. A full participation rate indicates nearly every enrolled student took the tests, so the results reflect the entire tested population. Parents should note that these proficiency rates represent a single snapshot; the school’s multi-year trend data was not available, so it is not possible to see whether performance has been improving, declining, or holding steady.
The school did not have publicly reported figures for free or reduced-price lunch eligibility, special education identification, or English learner status, so the economic and support-need profile of the student population is not directly observable from state data. The comparison tool that would place Rush Strong relative to other districts in Jefferson County was not usable because there was only one district in the county’s cohort, making a comparative analysis impossible.
The district, Jefferson County Schools, has made two recent changes worth knowing about. It launched a district-wide 1:1 device initiative that provides Chromebooks to all students in grades 3 through 12, a major shift in how instruction and homework are managed at the upper elementary level and beyond. It also implemented a new English Language Arts curriculum aligned with Tennessee state standards across all elementary grades, replacing the previous reading program and affecting how K-5 reading instruction is delivered. Families arriving in the district will encounter these policies in place.
Housing in the Strawberry Plains area, as measured by the zip code covering the school, showed home values modestly below the state average and below the national average at the last available reading. The area’s housing costs relative to incomes are such that a typical mortgage would be substantially higher than a typical rent, a condition that often points to a market where buying is more expensive than renting for many households. The national unemployment rate at the time of this data was moderate, and median household income nationally has trended upward in recent years.
For a family considering Rush Strong Elementary, the school offers a full pre-K-through-8 pathway in a single building, a trait that eliminates the need for a middle-school transition mid-stream and can be appealing for students who benefit from long-term stability. The academic profile is uneven: stronger in science and social studies, weaker in math and reading, with no multi-year trend data to clarify whether these gaps are persistent or a single year’s result. The community context is one of ongoing suburban growth, with highway-oriented development and a mix of residential and commercial expansion, characteristic of exurban areas near a major city. The district’s new technology and curriculum initiatives are concrete recent changes that may affect the day-to-day classroom experience, especially for upper-elementary and middle-grade students who now have school-issued devices. Parents with specific questions about special education services, English learner supports, or the school’s economic makeup will need to ask the school directly, as those data points were not available in this report.
See more original research from School Decision →