Office for Education Policy Announces Outstanding Educational Performance Awards Haas Hall Academy -

Fort Smith, AR – October 9, 2025 – The Office for Education Policy at the University of Arkansas has announced their annual “Outstanding Educational Performance (OEP) Awards: Highlighting High−Growth Arkansas Schools for 2025,” based on ATLAS (Arkansas Testing, Learning & Assessment System) examinations in Mathematics and English Language Arts (ELA).
 
ATLAS provides information about Arkansas student mastery of college and career readiness. During the 2024−2025 academic year, examinations were administered to third through eighth grade students in mathematics, Algebra I and Geometry, and to third through tenth grade students in the English Language Arts.
 
For the purposes of the OEP Awards, content-area growth was calculated and reported by the Arkansas Department of Education (ADE). ADE identified highest growth schools by level under Arkansas’s ESSA (Every Student Succeeds Act) Plan − Elementary, Middle and High School − statewide and by region.
 
Haas Hall Academy (HHA) – Fort Smith (FS), for its second year of operations, was ranked #6 in the state for Overall ATLAS Growth, and #3 in the Northwest Region, behind Haas Hall Academy at the Jones Center in Springdale and Haas Hall Academy in Bentonville. For ATLAS Math Growth, HHA-FS ranked #8 in the state and #4 in the Northwest Region. All HHA-FS rankings were the highest in the River Valley, for each category.
 
Opened in the Fall of 2023, Haas Hall Academy – Fort Smith is housed on the fourth floor of the multi-purpose Arkansas Colleges of Health Education (ACHE) Research Institute, Health and Wellness Center (former Beverly Enterprises/Golden Living headquarters building), located at 1000 Fianna Way in southwest Fort Smith.
 
The local tuition-free college preparatory school serves Arkansas residents in grades 7−12. At the District level, the Academy was founded in 2004, becoming the state’s first and now longest serving open−enrollment public charter high school. After humble beginnings in Farmington, HHA moved its flagship campus to Fayetteville and later expanded into Bentonville, Rogers and Springdale.
 
For the past 14 years, Haas Hall Academy has been ranked #1 in Arkansas for academics. Additionally, U.S. News & World Report places the Academy as the #4 charter school and the #7 high school overall in the nation (August 2025). Last month (September 2025), all five HHA campuses were given a letter grade of “A” by the ADE and 13.2% of the state’s announced National Merit Scholarship Program Semi-Finalists attend the schools.
 
To learn more about Haas Hall, including information about its new mid-year admissions in January 2026, please visit the HHA website (haashall.org) or call the Fort Smith campus at (479) 977-4930.
 
About Haas Hall Academy
HHA’s mission is to provide an aggressive and positive alternative to the traditional learning environment for scholars with a high intensity of purpose, enabling them to succeed at the most prestigious colleges and universities in the country and around the world, and to become leaders of their communities and pillars of society.