The top reported proficiency rate is 18% in Science. The lowest is 11% in English language arts.
Original Research by School Decision on W.a. Higgins Middle School Academy
W.A. Higgins Middle School Academy sits on Chestnut Street in Clarksdale, serving seventh and eighth graders in the Clarksdale Municipal School District. It is a traditional public middle school, not a charter or magnet, and every student enrolled qualifies for free or reduced-price lunch. The student body is almost entirely Black, with only a handful of students from other racial or ethnic backgrounds. The enrollment is modest for a two-grade middle school, with a slightly larger seventh-grade cohort than eighth.
The most recent Mississippi Academic Assessment Program results, from the 2024-25 school year, paint a concerning academic picture. In seventh-grade math, roughly a quarter of tested students reached proficiency. That figure drops sharply by eighth grade, where only a small fraction of students demonstrated proficiency in math. English language arts results follow a similar pattern: proficiency rates in both seventh and eighth grade are low, with the eighth-grade rate just under the seventh-grade rate. Eighth-grade science proficiency falls between the two, with fewer than one in five tested students reaching proficiency. Average scale scores were reported across all tested subjects and grades, but participation rates were missing from the state data, so it is not possible to confirm how fully the student body was assessed. A parent may want to ask the school how it is addressing the steep drop in math proficiency between seventh and eighth grade, as that decline is the most pronounced pattern in the results.
No multi-year trend data was available, so there is no way to tell from the provided information whether these numbers represent improvement, decline, or stability over time. Data on students with individualized education programs and English learners was also missing. Because this is a middle school serving only seventh and eighth grades, there is no graduation rate to report and no state accountability grade tied to high school completion.
Clarksdale is the county seat of Coahoma County, positioned in the Mississippi Delta. The local economy rests on agriculture, processing, and distribution for the surrounding farmland, with cotton, soybeans, rice, and other crops defining the regional trade. Manufacturing includes rubber products, mobile homes, cabinets, farm equipment, and wire. Since the mid-1990s, blues music heritage and tourism have become an increasingly important economic driver, with casinos, the Delta Blues Museum housed in the old Illinois Central Railroad freight depot, and live music venues clustered downtown along Delta Avenue. Coahoma Community College, a historically Black college, sits on a separate campus north of the city. The city has seen long-term population decline, but music tourism and new transplants have brought a modest revival, and CNN named Clarksdale one of America's best towns to visit in 2025.
The housing market around the school is among the most affordable in the state. The typical home value in the school's zip code is a small fraction of the national benchmark and well below the state benchmark, and values have been declining. For a family relying on a single income or working in agriculture or local services, housing costs here are low relative to most places. Rental data was not available, so a full picture of the rental market is incomplete.
No data was provided on course offerings, extracurricular programs, staffing ratios, attendance, discipline, or school climate, so those dimensions cannot be characterized here. The school's Title I status was not reported, though the universal free-or-reduced-price lunch rate strongly suggests the school serves a high-poverty population and likely receives federal support. A family considering Higgins would be looking at a small, community-based middle school in a Delta town with deep cultural roots and a struggling but reviving local economy, and would want to have direct conversations with school leadership about academic support, course access, and the school's plan for improving proficiency outcomes.
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