Dixie Attendance Center, Hattiesburg MS

Original Research by School Decision on Dixie Attendance Center

Dixie Attendance Center sits on Elks Lake Road in Hattiesburg, Mississippi, serving pre-kindergarten through eighth grade as part of the Forrest County School District. It is a traditional public school, not a charter or magnet, and its enrollment is modest for a school covering that many grade levels. The student body is majority White with a substantial Black population and a smaller share of students identifying as Hispanic or multiracial. About two-thirds of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, which tells you this is a school serving a mix of working-class and middle-income families rather than an affluent one. Data on English learners and special-education enrollment was not available, so those demographics are left out here rather than guessed.

Hattiesburg gives the school its context. It is a mid-sized city and the principal hub of the Pine Belt region, home to the University of Southern Mississippi and William Carey University, with a younger population than much of the surrounding area. Camp Shelby, the largest National Guard training base east of the Mississippi River, sits just south of the city and brings a steady military presence. The city grew around railroads and lumber, earning its "Hub City" nickname, and today remains a regional crossroads at the intersection of Interstate 59 and several US highways. Commercial life is auto-oriented, with shopping concentrated along highway corridors and at Turtle Creek Mall. Walkable pockets exist downtown and in the historic Victorian neighborhood district, but most families will find a car essential. Housing in the school's zip code is well below both state and national benchmarks for typical home values, and rents are similarly modest, making this one of the more affordable corners of the Hattiesburg metro for families buying or renting.

On Mississippi's MAAP assessments for the most recent reported year, Dixie's results are a genuine strength in the early and middle grades. Math proficiency runs strong in third and fourth grade, dips somewhat in fifth, and then drops to its lowest point in sixth grade before recovering sharply in seventh and eighth. The sixth-grade math result is the clear soft spot in the sequence, and a parent whose child is approaching that transition may want to look into how the school supports students during that year. ELA follows a related but distinct pattern: proficiency is strong in third through fifth, eases in sixth, falls to its lowest in seventh, and rebounds in eighth. Science, tested only in fifth and eighth, shows a solid fifth-grade result and an especially strong eighth-grade one. Taken together, the upper-elementary grades are where this school does its best work, and the middle-grade years show a dip that the school appears to pull students through by eighth grade.

No trend data across multiple years was available, so it is hard to say whether these patterns are stable or improving. Participation rates for the assessments were not reported. The school does not serve high school grades, so there is no graduation rate or ACT data to report, and no AP or career-pathway information was provided. Program offerings, staffing details, discipline data, and Title I status were all absent from the available information. The district brief for Forrest County School District turned up no parent-relevant changes such as bond issues, curriculum shifts, or facility updates, so there is nothing to relay on that front.

What a family gets at Dixie is a small, pre-K-through-eighth community school in an affordable part of a university and military town, with solid state test results in the elementary years and a middle-grade dip that seems to correct by eighth grade. The gaps in the available data mean a parent would want to ask the school directly about special-education services, English-learner support, extracurriculars, and how the sixth and seventh grades are structured to address the proficiency dip.

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Academic performance

How students perform on state tests, by grade, set against the district.

Math

Grade 377%

School 77% · District 64% · ▲ 13 pts above district

▲ 27 pts above state median · ▲ 5 pts above county median

Grade 475%

School 75% · District 57% · ▲ 18 pts above district

▲ 24 pts above state median · ▲ 9 pts above county median

Grade 566%

School 66% · District 47% · ▲ 19 pts above district

▲ 24 pts above state median · ▲ 20 pts above county median

Grade 653%

School 53% · District 48% · ▲ 5 pts above district

▲ 2 pts above state median

Grade 773%

School 73% · District 67% · ▲ 6 pts above district

▲ 21 pts above state median

Grade 873%

School 73% · District 48% · ▲ 25 pts above district

▲ 29 pts above state median

English language arts

Grade 371%

School 71% · District 64% · ▲ 6 pts above district

▲ 23 pts above state median · ▲ 9 pts above county median

Grade 479%

School 79% · District 60% · ▲ 19 pts above district

▲ 30 pts above state median · ▲ 23 pts above county median

Grade 576%

School 76% · District 62% · ▲ 13 pts above district

▲ 24 pts above state median · ▲ 18 pts above county median

Grade 667%

School 67% · District 52% · ▲ 15 pts above district

▲ 25 pts above state median

Grade 754%

School 54% · District 53% · ▲ 1 pts above district

▲ 22 pts above state median

Grade 867%

School 67% · District 51% · ▲ 16 pts above district

▲ 31 pts above state median

Science

Grade 564%

School 64% · District 66% · ▼ 1 pts below district

even with state median · ▼ 2 pts below county median

Grade 876%

School 76% · District 60% · ▲ 16 pts above district

▲ 23 pts above state median

This schoolFORREST COUNTY SCHOOL DISTRICT, 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.