Moulton Middle School, Moulton AL

Original Research by School Decision on Moulton Middle School

Moulton Middle School serves grades five through eight in the Lawrence County school system, drawing students from the town of Moulton and the surrounding rural area. The school sits on a separate campus from the downtown square that defines Moulton’s civic life—a traditional courthouse square with antique stores, restaurants, county offices, and a landscaped park. The town itself is a small county seat that has grown slowly over recent years, with its main retail corridor running along the highway on the eastern side of town. Manufacturing, education and healthcare, and retail trade are the largest employment sectors locally.

The student body is predominantly white, with a small share of Black, Hispanic, and American Indian or Alaska Native students. A substantial share of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, placing the school in a higher-poverty context relative to the national average. Enrollment figures put it at a size typical for a middle school serving four grade levels in a small-town setting. Data on students with disabilities and English learners was not available in the reporting.

Academic outcomes on the Alabama state assessments present a clear split between subjects. In English language arts, proficiency rates across grades five through eight cluster near the midpoint or above it on the state’s scale, with the highest performance in grade five. In mathematics, the picture is much softer. Proficiency rates in math are low across every grade level, with a notable drop as students move from grade five into the upper grades. The lowest math performance is in grade seven, where only a small share of students met the proficiency bar. Science, tested only in grade eight, also shows a modest proficiency rate, though the single data point makes it hard to discern a trend. Because only one year of assessment data was available under the current test, there is no basis for comparing improvement or decline over time.

The school is a regular public school, not a charter or magnet. No information was available on course access, staffing levels, discipline rates, or chronic absenteeism, so those dimensions of the school environment cannot be characterized from the data. A search for recent district-level changes in Lawrence County turned up little of lasting impact, suggesting stability rather than upheaval in the district’s operations.

For a parent considering Moulton Middle, the core question is how the school’s academic profile fits a particular child. The English language arts results are a relative strength and suggest that many students arrive at and move through the school with solid reading and writing skills. The math results, however, warrant attention. The sharp drop in math proficiency from grade five to the later grades is the kind of pattern a parent may want to discuss with the school directly—what supports are in place, whether the curriculum has shifted, and how the school identifies and intervenes with students who struggle. The school does not serve high school grades, so there is no graduation rate to report, and no advanced coursework or career pathways tied to this building. The housing market in Moulton is generally affordable relative to national benchmarks, and the town’s slow growth suggests a stable but not rapidly expanding community. Parents who want a school with strong literacy outcomes and are prepared to investigate math support may find this a fit; those seeking a middle school with high overall test scores or a wide array of specialized programs will find a more limited offering here.

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Academic performance

How students perform on state tests, by grade, set against the district.

Math

Grade 524%

School 24% · District 27% · ▼ 2 pts below district

▼ 9 pts below state median

Grade 619%

School 19% · District 24% · ▼ 6 pts below district

▼ 10 pts below state median

Grade 713%

School 13% · District 8% · ▲ 5 pts above district

▼ 4 pts below state median

Grade 825%

School 25% · District 14% · ▲ 11 pts above district

▲ 10 pts above state median

English language arts

Grade 563%

School 63% · District 63%

▼ 4 pts below state median

Grade 647%

School 47% · District 50% · ▼ 3 pts below district

▼ 8 pts below state median

Grade 744%

School 44% · District 37% · ▲ 8 pts above district

▼ 9 pts below state median

Grade 843%

School 43% · District 41% · ▲ 2 pts above district

▼ 9 pts below state median

Science

Grade 834%

School 34% · District 27% · ▲ 7 pts above district

▼ 1 pts below state median

This schoolLawrence County, same grade

Graduation rate (ACGR) reflects the federally published Adjusted Cohort Graduation Rate for the most recent year available. We refresh this data annually at the close of each academic year in June. The federal source publishes a banded rate (for example, "90-94%") instead of an exact number for cohorts small enough to risk identifying individual students. The state distribution chart, where shown, plots every school in the state with a published rate or band; schools whose rate is federally suppressed are excluded. Where the federal source publishes a band rather than an exact rate, the school is placed within its band using a stable, ID-derived offset, so its position is consistent across visits.

Proficiency by household income

English language arts

Grade 5Lower-income55%Higher-income74%19 pp gap

Grade 6Lower-income41%Higher-income55%14 pp gap

Grade 7Lower-income36%Higher-income53%18 pp gap

Grade 8Lower-income41%Higher-income46%5 pp gap

Mathematics

Grade 5Lower-income14%Higher-income39%26 pp gap

Grade 6Lower-income8%Higher-income33%25 pp gap

Grade 7Lower-income8%Higher-income18%10 pp gap

Grade 8Lower-income22%Higher-income30%7 pp gap