The top reported proficiency rate is 73% in Science. The lowest is 30% in English language arts.
Original Research by School Decision on S V Marshall Elementary School
S.V. Marshall Elementary School sits along Highway 12 in Lexington, the county seat of Holmes County, Mississippi. It is a pre-kindergarten through fifth-grade school in the Holmes County Consolidated School District, serving a small enrollment typical of its grade band in this rural Delta community. The school is not a charter or magnet. Nearly all of its students are Black or African American, and every enrolled student qualifies for free or reduced-price lunch, reflecting the deep economic hardship that characterizes this area.
Lexington is a small rural town organized around a courthouse square, with a formal street grid that gives way to rolling countryside within a few blocks. Highways 12 and 17 cross through the center, sharing a stretch of Carrollton Street north of the square. The town was founded specifically to serve as the Holmes County seat, so civic functions cluster downtown rather than on separated campuses. The economy has historically been agricultural, tied to the surrounding cotton-growing region, and the population has declined steadily over decades as farm mechanization reduced labor needs and residents left during the Great Migration. No major employers beyond county government and the school district itself were identified in publicly reported sources. This is a community dealing with long-term contraction, not growth, and the school reflects that reality.
State assessment results from the most recent year are available for grades three through five on Mississippi's MAAP test. In mathematics, proficiency was strongest in third grade, dipped in fourth, and fell further in fifth grade. English language arts followed a different pattern, with fifth-grade proficiency exceeding third and fourth. The clearest bright spot was fifth-grade science, where a strong majority of tested students reached proficiency. Across the board, math and ELA results sit below where most families would want them, and the fifth-grade math figure is the weakest result in the set. A parent may want to look into how the school supports students in upper elementary math specifically, since the drop-off in fifth grade is the most pronounced pattern in the data.
No multi-year trend data was available, so it is not possible to say whether these results represent improvement, decline, or stability. Participation rates were not reported. Information on special education enrollment, English learner services, staffing ratios, attendance, discipline, and course access was not available in the provided data. The school does not serve high school grades, so there is no graduation rate to report, and that absence simply reflects the grade band served rather than any gap in performance.
No program offerings were listed for the school, so families considering S.V. Marshall should ask the district directly about any enrichment, intervention, or extracurricular options available to elementary students. We looked for recent district-level changes that might affect families, such as curriculum overhauls, facility investments, or governance shifts, and found none in the available sources. The consolidation that created the current Holmes County Consolidated School District predates the recent window and appears to be the most recent structural change on record.
The housing market around the school is among the most affordable in the state. Typical home values in the school's zip code sit well below the Mississippi state benchmark and far below national figures, and recent year-over-year values have declined further. For a family already in or near Lexington, housing costs are low relative to income. For families considering moving in, the declining market and the broader population loss in the area are part of the picture.
What S.V. Marshall offers is a small, community-rooted elementary school in a town where civic life centers on the courthouse square and the schools are among the principal institutions. The science results suggest the school can produce strong outcomes when instruction clicks. The weaker math and ELA proficiency, particularly in fifth grade, is the area most worth a parent's attention. This is a school serving a high-need student population in a contracting rural community, and the data reflects both the challenges and the potential that come with that setting.
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