Summary:
The city of Bland, Missouri has only one public middle school, Maries County Middle, which serves grades 5-8 with a total enrollment of 210 students. The school faces significant challenges, with a highly homogeneous student population, consistently low test scores, and an extremely high rate of students qualifying for free or reduced-price lunch.
Maries County Middle's test scores are well below the state averages across all grade levels and subject areas. For example, in 8th grade Mathematics, only 14.8% of students scored proficient or better, compared to the state average of 30%. Similarly, in 8th grade English Language Arts, only 18.5% of students scored proficient or better, compared to the state average of 42.7%. This underperformance on standardized tests suggests that students at Maries County Middle are struggling to meet academic standards.
The school's student population is also not representative of the racial diversity found in other parts of the state, with 99.05% of students identifying as white. Additionally, the school has an extremely high rate of free and reduced lunch recipients, at 99.52%, indicating that the student population faces significant economic challenges. The school's statewide ranking has also declined over the past three years, placing it in the bottom half of middle schools in Missouri. These factors suggest that Maries County Middle faces significant obstacles in providing a high-quality education to its students, and further interventions may be necessary to improve the school's performance and support its community.
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