The top reported proficiency rate is 78% in Science. The lowest is 60% in English language arts.
Original Research by School Decision on Bell Elementary School
Bell Elementary School sits in Boyle, a small incorporated town in Bolivar County, Mississippi, within the Cleveland School District. Boyle is a quiet, primarily residential community in the flat Mississippi Delta, with a modest commercial footprint of local-serving businesses and a town footprint covering only a few square miles. The town operates its own water and sewer utilities, and civic life centers on Town Hall and a Mississippi Blues Trail marker commemorating Charlie Patton and the old Peavine Railroad line. Boyle sits roughly nine miles from Cleveland, the county seat and larger municipal neighbor that anchors the region's commercial, civic, and secondary education infrastructure. Publicly reported data describes Boyle as a declining, aging community, with a falling population projected to continue shrinking through the decade and a median household income that sits well below state norms. No major new housing developments or growth initiatives surfaced in available sources.
Bell Elementary serves pre-kindergarten through sixth grade and operates as part of the Cleveland School District. The school is not a charter and has no magnet designation in the data provided. Its enrollment is moderate for an elementary grade band, with roughly even class sizes across each grade level. The student body is majority Black, with a sizable white minority and a small share of multiracial and Hispanic students. Every student qualifies for free or reduced-price lunch, which is characteristic of the broader economic conditions in Boyle and the surrounding Delta region. Information on special education enrollment, English learner status, staffing ratios, discipline, attendance, course access, and Title I status was not available in the data provided. A parent may want to ask the school directly about those supports.
On Mississippi's MAAP assessments for the most recent reported year, Bell's results tell a mixed but improving story as students move up through the grades. In math, third-grade proficiency sits below the midpoint, with fewer than half of tested students reaching proficient or above. Fourth-grade math is stronger, with a majority proficient, and fifth grade holds in a similar range. The standout is sixth-grade math, where nearly all tested students reached proficiency, a result that stands well above what most schools in the state post at that grade level. English language arts follows a related pattern: third and fourth grade land around the midpoint, fifth grade jumps to a clear majority proficient, and sixth grade stays above the midpoint though below the fifth-grade peak. Fifth-grade science is another bright spot, with most tested students proficient, placing Bell's science outcome among the stronger results for its grade band in the state.
Because Bell serves only through sixth grade, there is no graduation rate, no ACT or college-readiness data, and no high school course or career-pathway information to report. Those gaps reflect the grade band, not a missing program. Participation rates for the state assessments were not reported in the available data, and no multi-year trend information was provided, so it is not possible to say from the numbers alone whether these results represent improvement or a stable pattern. A parent looking at Bell should weigh the weaker early-grade proficiency, especially in third-grade math, against the clear upward trajectory by fifth and sixth grade. That trajectory suggests students are leaving Bell better prepared than they arrive, which is a genuinely positive signal for families planning to stay through the upper elementary years. For middle and high school, students will move on to Cleveland Central, so families will want to look into those schools separately to understand the full pathway.
See more original research from School Decision →