The top reported proficiency rate is 51% in Science. The lowest is 27% in English language arts.
Original Research by School Decision on Alexander Junior High School
Alexander Junior High School sits on Beauregard Street in Brookhaven, the county seat of Lincoln County, and serves seventh and eighth graders as part of the Brookhaven School District. It is a traditional public school, not a charter or magnet, and it draws from a community where a substantial share of families meet the income threshold for free or reduced-price meals. The student body is majority Black, with a sizable white minority and small numbers of Hispanic, Asian, and multiracial students. The enrollment is moderate for a two-grade junior high, which gives the school a compact feel during a transitional age for adolescents.
Brookhaven itself is a small city with a layered identity. The historic downtown centers on the Lincoln County courthouse along US Route 51, with Interstate 55 running along the west side and US Highway 84 along the south. The railroad arrived in the nineteenth century, and Amtrak's City of New Orleans still stops here, connecting north to Memphis and south to New Orleans. In the early 2000s the city nearly tripled its land area through annexation, pulling in surrounding suburban developments and creating a blend of older town core and newer residential outskirts. Publicly reported sources describe the population as relatively stable between the 2020 census and a recent American Community Survey estimate. The city also hosts the Mississippi School of the Arts, a statewide magnet high school, which sits alongside the Brookhaven School District's own campuses. Several Lincoln County school attendance centers operate in the rural areas surrounding the city. Brookhaven Academy, a private school, was established during the desegregation era, and that history still shapes the educational landscape for families weighing options.
Housing in the school's zip code is modestly priced relative to both the Mississippi state benchmark and the national figure, and recent year-over-year values have drifted slightly downward. The price-to-income ratio sits below the national level, meaning local homeownership is within reach for more households than in many parts of the country. Rental data was not available, so a full picture of the rental market is not possible from the provided materials.
On state assessments, Alexander Junior High's results show a clear pattern. Science is the school's strongest subject, with eighth-grade proficiency reaching a level that represents a bare majority of tested students, the best result across all subjects and grades reported. Mathematics proficiency is stronger in eighth grade than in seventh, and English language arts follows the same upward trajectory between grades. Still, proficiency in both math and ELA sits below the level most observers would want to see, with seventh-grade ELA the lowest result. The eighth-grade numbers improve on the seventh-grade baseline, which suggests students may be making gains as they move through the school, but the overall proficiency rates indicate that a large portion of students are not yet meeting state benchmarks. A parent may want to look into how the school supports students who arrive below grade level and what intervention resources are available.
Participation rates for the state assessments were not reported, so it is not possible to confirm full test participation from the available data. The school does not have high school grades, so there is no graduation rate to report, and no AP or career-pathway data applies to this grade band. Information on special education enrollment, English learner services, discipline, staffing, attendance, and course access was not provided, which leaves gaps in understanding the full student support picture. We looked for district-level strategic priorities or recent parent-relevant changes in the Brookhaven School District but found little, so we left it out rather than guess.
What the data does show is a small junior high in an affordable, historic South Mississippi town, serving a student population with significant economic need, producing its strongest academic results in eighth-grade science, and working from a lower baseline in seventh-grade reading and math that improves as students advance.
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