Calhoun City High School, Calhoun City MS

Original Research by School Decision on Calhoun City High School

Calhoun City High School sits in the town of Calhoun City, a small rural community at the crossroads of Mississippi Highways 8 and 9 in Calhoun County. The town's economy runs on a mix of light manufacturing, healthcare, and agriculture. Albany Industries, a sofa and chair manufacturer, is the most prominently named employer, and the county hospital and nursing home anchor the healthcare sector. Timberland and cultivated farmland surround the town. The Yalobusha River passes about a mile south, and Grenada Lake, with fishing and boating, is under an hour away. Pine Hills Golf Club offers a local recreation option. No public library branch or public transit system was identified. The town has been losing population over recent years, and no major new housing developments or commercial construction projects surfaced in publicly reported search results. Home values are quite low relative to state and national levels and have been declining year over year.

Despite the name, this school serves grades five through twelve, combining middle and high school under one roof. It is a traditional public school, part of the Calhoun County School District, and not a charter or magnet. Enrollment is modest for a school spanning eight grade levels. A substantial majority of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch. The student body is majority Black, with a sizable White population and small shares of Hispanic students, students of two or more races, and a handful of Asian students. A private school, Calhoun Academy, also operates in the area. Publicly reported sources note it was formed as a segregation academy, which is part of the historical context a family considering this community may want to understand.

On state assessments, the most recent MAAP results show a clear pattern. Science is the strongest area, with proficiency rates at about the halfway mark in both tested grades. English language arts sits in the middle, with fifth-grade results the highest and proficiency tapering in the upper middle grades. Math is the softest subject, with proficiency rates sitting below the midpoint across all four tested grades and staying fairly flat from fifth through eighth. A parent weighing these results may want to ask the school what math interventions and support structures are in place, particularly for the transition years. Participation rate data was not available in the provided records.

Several important pieces are missing from what was available. No graduation rate was included, which is a standard measure for a school serving high school grades. No end-of-course or ACT results, college and career readiness indicators, advanced course offerings, dual-credit pathways, or career and technical education programs appeared in the data. This limits the picture of what the high school experience looks like for older students. Special-population data for students with individualized education programs and English learners was also absent, so it is hard to gauge the level of specialized support those students receive. No discipline, attendance, or staffing information was provided. No trend data was available, so there is no way to characterize whether these proficiency results represent improvement, decline, or stability over time.

The district brief turned up no specific parent-relevant changes such as referendums, property tax shifts, curriculum overhauls, or facility investments from recent years. The search found basic district demographics, school listings, and residency policy details but nothing that would signal a shift in direction.

What the assembled picture suggests is a small, rural, combined-grade school in an affordable but economically strained community, with middling state test results that are strongest in science and weakest in math. Families looking here would benefit from direct conversations with the school about academic supports, high school course options, and post-graduation pathways, since those details did not appear in the available data.

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Academic performance

State test results and graduation outcomes.

Graduation rate (ACGR)

80-89%Cohort of 56 students · Class of 2021

The federal source publishes a banded range instead of an exact rate when the graduating cohort is small enough that an exact number could risk identifying individual students.

How this school compares to all schools in this state

Each dot is one school’s SY 2020-21 graduation rate, binned by integer rate. Taller columns mean more schools at that rate. This school is highlighted.

241 schools plotted. 29 additional schools' rates are federally suppressed and not shown. Data: EDFacts SY 2020-21.

Math

Grade 529%

School 29% · District 34% · ▼ 5 pts below district

▼ 13 pts below state median

Grade 627%

School 27% · District 46% · ▼ 19 pts below district

▼ 24 pts below state median

Grade 727%

School 27% · District 39% · ▼ 13 pts below district

▼ 25 pts below state median

Grade 831%

School 31% · District 42% · ▼ 11 pts below district

▼ 13 pts below state median

English language arts

Grade 548%

School 48% · District 55% · ▼ 7 pts below district

▼ 3 pts below state median

Grade 635%

School 35% · District 36% · ▼ 1 pts below district

▼ 7 pts below state median

Grade 729%

School 29% · District 36% · ▼ 7 pts below district

▼ 3 pts below state median

Grade 833%

School 33% · District 31% · ▲ 1 pts above district

▼ 4 pts below state median

Science

Grade 555%

School 55% · District 60% · ▼ 5 pts below district

▼ 10 pts below state median

Grade 851%

School 51% · District 58% · ▼ 7 pts below district

▼ 2 pts below state median

This schoolCALHOUN CO SCHOOL DIST, same grade

Graduation rate (ACGR) reflects the federally published Adjusted Cohort Graduation Rate for the most recent year available. We refresh this data annually at the close of each academic year in June. The federal source publishes a banded rate (for example, "90-94%") instead of an exact number for cohorts small enough to risk identifying individual students. The state distribution chart, where shown, plots every school in the state with a published rate or band; schools whose rate is federally suppressed are excluded. Where the federal source publishes a band rather than an exact rate, the school is placed within its band using a stable, ID-derived offset, so its position is consistent across visits.