The top reported proficiency rate is 65% in Science. The lowest is 52% in English language arts.
Original Research by School Decision on Akin Elementary School
Akin Elementary School sits on Bowman Boulevard in Greenville, Mississippi, serving first through fifth graders in the Greenville Public School District. It is a traditional public elementary, neither a charter nor a magnet, and it draws from a community where every enrolled student qualifies for free or reduced-price lunch. The student body is predominantly Black, with small numbers of white, Hispanic, Asian, multiracial, and American Indian or Alaska Native students. The enrollment is mid-sized for an elementary building, with fairly even distribution across the five grades and a slight taper in the upper elementary years.
The most striking thing about Akin's state assessment results is the gap between grade four and grade five. On the Mississippi Academic Assessment Program, fourth graders at Akin posted strong results across the board. Math proficiency was notably high, with the large majority of tested fourth graders reaching proficient or above, and English language arts was also solid, with roughly two-thirds proficient. Third grade results were more mixed: a majority reached proficiency in ELA, while math sat just below half. Grade five, though, tells a different story. Both math and ELA proficiency dropped sharply, with only about a third of fifth graders scoring proficient in each subject. Science results for fifth grade were better, with nearly two-thirds reaching proficiency, which suggests some strength in that subject even as math and reading results lagged.
The data does not include participation rates, so it is hard to know whether the grade five dip reflects testing conditions, student mobility, or a genuine instructional challenge. A parent may want to look into this further with the school, especially if considering Akin for an upper-elementary child. No multi-year trend data was available, so the grade-to-grade pattern cannot be checked against prior years. The school serves only elementary grades, so there is no graduation rate to report and no high school course access data.
Greenville itself is the county seat of Washington County and the largest city in the Mississippi Delta. It sits along Lake Ferguson, an oxbow lake formed from a former Mississippi River channel, with a historic downtown core along Main Street and residential neighborhoods spreading outward. The city has a deep history as a cotton trading and cultural center for the surrounding plantations, and it still carries some of that agricultural-service economy alongside two riverboat casinos, Trop Casino Greenville near downtown and Harlow's Casino Resort near the Greenville Bridge. The Greenville Public School District is one of the area's major employers, and the Greenville Higher Education Center offers credit courses from Delta State University, Mississippi Delta Community College, and Mississippi Valley State University, giving the city a small higher-education foothold.
The built environment is predominantly car-oriented, typical of Delta cities. US Highways 61 and 82 and the Great River Road serve as the main arteries. The city has experienced population decline over recent decades, consistent with broader Delta trends. A cable-stayed Greenville Bridge crossing the Mississippi River into Arkansas replaced the older two-lane bridge, and the US 82 bypass was under construction to improve regional connectivity. Winterville Mounds, a state park and National Historic Landmark with prehistoric earthwork mounds, sits just north of the city and provides a cultural anchor.
Housing in the school's zip code is inexpensive by any standard. The typical home value sits well below both the Mississippi state benchmark and the national benchmark, and recent year-over-year values declined steeply. The price-to-income ratio is low relative to the national figure, meaning that for local earners, ownership is comparatively affordable on paper, though the declining value trend reflects the broader economic pressures the area faces. No rental data was available for this location.
The school's demographic and economic profile means Akin operates in a high-need setting. Every student qualifies for free or reduced-price lunch, which is consistent with the economic conditions in surrounding Greenville. The district brief did not surface specific recent policy changes, curriculum shifts, or facility plans, so there is little to report on that front.
For a parent weighing Akin, the fourth grade results are a genuine bright spot and suggest the school can produce strong outcomes in at least some grades. The grade five decline in math and ELA is the main soft spot in the available data, and without trend context or participation figures, it is hard to say whether it is a one-year anomaly or a recurring pattern. A family considering enrollment would do well to ask the school directly about how it supports fifth graders specifically, what explains the drop-off, and what the plan is for closing that gap.
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