Forty staff, about 107 students in grades 7 through 12, and the highest school tax levy in Randolph County. Here is why.
101 Evans Street, Higbee, MO 65257 · 660-456-7206 · fax 660-456-7278
Superintendent’s line 660-456-7277
higbeeschool.com · Live Feed · Facebook
Who to ask for
Superintendent Tanner Burton — Tburton@higbeeschool.com, 660-456-7277. He also handles special education.
Principal Mandy Niemeier — Mniemeier@higbeeschool.com, 660-456-7206. Also special education.
Athletic Director Ryan Vogelgesang — rvogelgesang@higbeeschool.com. Also teaches high school social studies.
Counsellor Erika Derboven — who is also A+ coordinator, MOSIS coordinator, and liaison for homeless, foster care and English learners.
Bookkeepers Amber Walter and Annette Jennings · office Kayla Richards
Nurse Grace Schell · facilities Mike Perkins · kitchen Kathy Henry
Buses — Linda Furlong and Natalie Ware
Look at those job titles. The counsellor holds five roles. The superintendent also runs special education. The athletic director teaches a full social studies load. Three teachers cover grades 5 through 7 across English, maths and social studies while also holding homerooms, and one teacher handles both high school maths and chemistry.
That is what a district of this size looks like from the inside, and it is worth knowing before you ring at 2 p.m. expecting someone to be free.
The Tigers
Black and gold.
Baseball and softball run in both fall and spring. Basketball in winter. Boys’ and girls’ track and field in spring. There is no football — the school is too small to field a team.
Schedules are on the MSHSAA page, with game-day posts on the live feed.
Lunch menus are published
Higbee is the only one of the three small county districts that publishes a live dining menu, running weeks ahead. It is on the district site.
Lunch prices themselves are not published — call 660-456-7206.
Why the tax bill is what it is
If you live in Higbee, your total property tax levy is around 9.46 per $100 of assessed valuation. Rural Higbee is about 5.99. Both are the highest in Randolph County, and by a wide margin.
Two separate things are stacked on top of each other, and only one of them is the school.
One: the district is small and the property is not worth much
Higbee R-VIII levies 4.05 for operations plus 1.00 for debt service — 5.05 in total. That is the highest school levy in the county; Westran’s is 3.70 with no debt levy at all.
The reason is not extravagance. Higbee’s total assessed valuation is about $17.2 million. Westran’s is about $183 million — more than ten times larger.
At those numbers, Higbee’s 5.05 levy raises roughly $867,000 a year. Westran’s lower 3.70 levy raises about $6.8 million. A small district with little property wealth has to charge far more per hundred dollars to run a school at all.
Two: the city’s own debt
Separate from the school, the City of Higbee carries a debt service levy of 2.5328 on top of its general revenue and parks levies — by far the largest municipal debt levy in Randolph County. Moberly’s entire city levy is 1.13.
That city debt levy is what creates almost the whole gap between the in-town rate and the rural rate. If you are inside the Higbee city limits you are paying for the school and for the city’s borrowing.
Full county levy tables are in our property tax guide. If you want to know what the city’s debt was for, that is a question for Higbee City Hall, 106 N. Railroad Street, open Tuesday to Friday 9 to 4.
What is not published
The board of education membership and meeting schedule, the school calendar, current enrolment and lunch prices are not on the district’s website. Call 660-456-7206.
The live feed is active and posted most school days. That is the practical channel.
Higbee itself
Higbee is a Purple Heart City. Its main park was renamed in 2024 for Robert Westfall Jr., killed in Vietnam, and a monument stands there. The town has two parks, both with free shelters you can book at City Hall — details in our things to do guide.
The polling place for the Higbee precincts is Higbee City Hall, 108 N. Railroad Street.
Staff from Higbee R-VIII’s published directory; levy and assessed valuation figures from the Missouri State Auditor’s property tax rate report, September 2026. The auditor’s component figures are from the most recent published report and may differ by a few hundredths from the collector’s current year.
