The top reported proficiency rate is 59% in Science. The lowest is 38% in English language arts.
Original Research by School Decision on A W James Elementary School
A. W. James Elementary School sits in Drew, a small agricultural town in the Mississippi Delta, and serves children from pre-kindergarten through fifth grade. It is part of the Sunflower County Consolidated School District, the kind of rural elementary school where nearly every student comes from a family meeting income thresholds for free or reduced-price meals. The student body is almost entirely Black, with a small number of Hispanic and multiracial children. This is a community-rooted school drawing from a town that has seen better economic days and is still finding its footing.
On state assessments, the most recent MAAP results tell a mixed story. Third graders show solid math proficiency, with a clear majority meeting grade-level benchmarks, and fourth graders do even better in math, with nearly two-thirds reaching proficiency. Fifth-grade math drops off considerably, with fewer than a third of tested students clearing the bar. English language arts follows a similar arc: third-grade proficiency is quite low, fourth grade jumps to a solid majority proficient, and fifth grade falls back to around a third. Science results for fifth graders are the strongest signal in the data, with a clear majority reaching proficiency. The pattern across grades is uneven, with the middle elementary years looking stronger than the bookends. No multi-year trend data was available, so it is hard to say whether these results represent improvement, decline, or a snapshot in place. A parent may want to ask the school directly about how it supports third-grade reading and fifth-grade transition, since those grades show the weakest results.
Drew itself is a compact, flat town you can drive across in minutes. Publicly reported sources describe a community that once had more cotton gins than anywhere else in the country but now retains only one, with a local grocery store having closed in recent years. Commercial activity is minimal. The school district is cited as the area's largest employer, and the Mississippi State Penitentiary at Parchman sits a short distance north as a major regional institution. Civic anchors include the Drew Public Library and a community park. Mississippi Delta Community College maintains a center in town, and a small regional airport serves the Drew and Ruleville area. The town's population has been declining, and publicly reported estimates point to continued contraction rather than growth. No major housing developments are noted.
Housing here is inexpensive by any standard. Home values in the school's zip code sit well below both the Mississippi state benchmark and the national figure, and recent trends show values still drifting downward. The price-to-income ratio is close to parity, meaning local wages roughly track local home prices, which keeps ownership within reach for working families compared with most of the country. Rental data was not available, so a full picture of the rental market is missing from what we have.
The district context matters for families considering this school. In 2022, the Sunflower County Consolidated School District closed two schools, East Sunflower Elementary in the town of Sunflower and Inverness School in Inverness, permanently changing school assignments for families in those communities. Those closures reshuffled where children attend and added distance for some households. A. W. James itself was not closed, but the broader consolidation speaks to the pressures the district faces with declining population and stretched resources. After fifth grade, students move on to Drew Hunter Middle School in town, and high schoolers attend Ruleville Central High School in nearby Ruleville.
Several pieces of information a parent might want were missing from the available data. The school's Title I status, charter or magnet designation, staffing ratios, discipline data, course offerings, attendance figures, and any specialized programs were either not reported or not available. Civil-rights data was absent. Special-population counts for students with individualized education programs and English learners were not reported. Without these, it is difficult to assess the full range of supports beyond what the proficiency numbers and community context convey. What is clear is that A. W. James is a small, community-anchored elementary school in a Delta town working against economic headwinds, serving a high-poverty student population with assessment results that run hot and cold across the grade levels.
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