The top reported proficiency rate is 36% in English language arts. The lowest is 9% in Math.
Original Research by School Decision on Burns Middle School
Burns Middle School serves students in sixth through eighth grade and sits in Mobile, a mid-size port city on Alabama’s Gulf Coast. The school is part of the Mobile County Public School System, a countywide district that covers a large geographic area with schools spread across urban, suburban, and rural settings rather than concentrated downtown. Mobile itself has a working industrial character anchored by the Port of Mobile, Airbus’s final assembly line, and shipbuilding, with a historic downtown core along Dauphin Street and Bienville Square. The city’s July 2023 west annexation reshaped its population and made it majority-minority, and the economy has been in a long rebound since the late 1980s. A parent considering Burns Middle School should know they are looking at a school in a metropolitan area that is still growing and diversifying, with a strong industrial and port-focused economy.
The school enrolls a substantial number of students, making it a sizable middle school for a regular public school in this region. The student body is predominantly Black, with White students as the next largest group, followed by smaller shares of Hispanic and Asian students. More than half of the students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, indicating that a significant portion of the student population comes from lower-income households. Data on students with disabilities and English learners was missing, so a parent may want to ask about special education and language support services directly.
On the Alabama state assessments from the most recent year across all tested grades, Burns Middle School’s proficiency rates sit below the midpoint of the county’s districts. In math, the share of students meeting proficiency was low across all three grades, with sixth, seventh, and eighth graders each showing a single-digit proficiency rate. In English language arts, the rates were higher, though still a modest share of students reached proficiency in each grade. In science, the proficiency rate among eighth graders falls in a similar range as the English scores. The school’s overall proficiency index, which averages these subject results, placed the school in the bottom quartile among districts in Mobile County. Because this is a middle school that does not serve high school grades, there is no graduation rate to report, and chronic absenteeism data was not available. A parent may want to ask the school about its academic improvement plans and what supports are in place for students who are below grade level, especially in math, where the scores are notably lower than in reading.
The school does not appear in the data as a magnet or charter school, and its Title I status was not given. No program offerings were provided, so a parent will need to ask about electives, arts, athletics, and any advanced coursework available at the middle school level. The district brief turned up little in the way of recent systemwide changes that would directly affect families, so there is no large reconfiguration or boundary shift to weigh.
Housing in the zip code where the school is located shows home values that are modest relative to national benchmarks, and rents that are affordable compared to typical household incomes in the area. The local unemployment rate has been steady, and median household income nationally has ticked up slightly in recent years. For a family moving to the west Mobile or Girby Road area, the housing market appears accessible, though values have softened recently.
The picture that emerges is of a regular public middle school serving a diverse and low-income student body in a city that is economically active but still working through a long recovery. Academic performance on state tests is a clear soft spot, especially in math, and a parent would want to investigate what targeted interventions the school uses, whether there are tutoring programs, and how the school communicates with families about student progress. The school is surrounded by a large county system with many options, so a family weighing Burns against other area schools will want to compare program availability and academic trends directly. This is a school whose basic contours are straightforward: a large, majority-Black middle school in a port city with challenging test scores and a high rate of economic need, set in a housing market that remains relatively affordable.
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