RIPLEY CO. ELEM.

RIPLEY CO. ELEM. operates as a tiny elementary school in GATEWOOD, Missouri, overseen by RIPLEY CO. R-III. Current enrollment sits at 123 students spanning grades pre-K through 8. That puts it 61% below the typical public school in Missouri, which averages around 315 students.

RIPLEY CO. R-III is the operating authority for RIPLEY CO. ELEM., handling staffing, calendars, and reporting to the state department of education.

On the student-mix side, RIPLEY CO. ELEM. reports that the student body is overwhelmingly White (94%); the rest reads as 3% Hispanic, 3% Black. That mix tracks the wider county fairly closely.

Looking at the economic backdrop, Staff filings list 13 full-time-equivalent teachers, which works out to roughly 9.8:1 students per teacher. That figure is tighter than the state norm's 12.4:1 average. An estimated 100% of students are eligible for free or reduced-price lunch, often used as a Title I proxy.

On a residual basis (actual vs predicted given the student mix), RIPLEY CO. ELEM. tracks the demographic baseline. The model predicts 49.4% given the school's FRL share; actual proficiency is 55.5%.

Across the wider county, census data for Ripley County shows median household income runs about $42,037, about 13% of the adult population holds a bachelor's degree or above, and the poverty rate sits near 21%. In all, Ripley County runs 10 public schools (combined enrollment of about 2,118 students), of which RIPLEY CO. ELEM. is one.

Nearest neighbor: RIPLEY CO. ELEM., around 9.8 miles off. Among the 7 schools in that immediate cluster with test data (this one included), RIPLEY CO. ELEM. ranks 3rd on composite proficiency, higher than the local average of 46.1%.

The campus sits in a countryside setting.

Five-year trend. RIPLEY CO. ELEM.'s enrollment has expanded 43% since 2018, when it stood at 86 (now 123). The White share of enrollment edged down from 99% to 94% over that span. Class-load math has grew: from 6.9:1 in 2018 to 9.8:1 in 2025.

On the community side, members of the RIPLEY CO. ELEM. community share and discuss open house dates, ride-share offers, and field-trip permission slips. Anyone with firsthand experience at this school can post or comment.