Gentry Middle School receives high marks

— When the University of Arkansas Office of Educational Policy issued its Sept. 28 Arkansas Education Report, it contained positive news for the Gentry School District and especially for the Gentry Middle School.

The Middle School was listed three times on the report which congratulates schools achieving outstanding educational performance.

The school was listed in the "Top 20" list at Number 17 in the state based on the school's Benchmark math achievement for schools serving disadvantaged populations. The school was tied with Mountainburg Middle School and Trumann Intermediate School in the Number 17 spot, with 75 percent of students scoring proficient or advanced on the math exam last year.

The school has 66 percent of its students eligible to receive free or reducedprice lunches, the family-income-based method used to calculate disadvantaged student populations.

The Middle School came in at Number 3 on the "Top 20" list of high-poverty schools in literacy achievement, based upon the Benchmark exams given last spring. Eighty-four percent of students scored in the proficient and advanced categories on the test.

The school took the Number 1 spot among the state's "Top-5" in literacy at the seventh-grade level, with 85 percent of students scoring proficient or advanced on the Benchmark exam. This was, again, among schools classified as high-poverty due to the number of students eligible for free and reduced-price lunches.

"We are all very proud of being selected as one of the schools beating the odds, having high achieving scores and serving lowincome students," Gentry Middle School principal Larry Cozens wrote in an email. "The reason is the staff at Gentry Middle School. The teachers have high expectations for each and every student and will not let them do anything but their best."

Cozens said the tests cover math and literacy but each teacher knows that the scores reflect the school's efforts in every subject.

News, Pages 1 on 10/12/2011