The top reported proficiency rate is 93% in Science. The lowest is 75% in Math.
Original Research by School Decision on Lyman Elementary School
Lyman Elementary School sits on Old Highway 49 in Gulfport, part of the Harrison County School District, and serves kindergarten through sixth grade. The campus draws from a city shaped by its coastal geography and its history as a railroad terminus and lumber port. Gulfport today runs on military operations, tourism, healthcare, and maritime commerce, with publicly reported major employers including Memorial Hospital, the Naval Construction Battalion Center, Island View Casino, and the school districts themselves. The city has rebuilt substantially since Hurricane Katrina, with civic anchors like the Mississippi Aquarium and a renewed port. Interstate 10 cuts east to west through the middle of Gulfport, U.S. 90 hugs the coast through downtown, and U.S. 49 runs south from the interior and terminates in the city, so Lyman's position along that northern corridor puts it in the auto-oriented stretch of town rather than the beachfront core.
On state assessments, Lyman's results are a real strength in the early grades. Third graders perform at a high level in both math and English language arts, with most students reaching proficiency. Fourth grade holds strong in ELA and stays solid in math. Science in fifth grade stands out as the school's brightest spot, with nearly all tested students proficient. Where the numbers soften is fifth grade math, where the proficiency rate drops noticeably from the grades below it, and sixth grade ELA, which also eases compared with third and fourth. Sixth grade math rebounds to a high level. A parent might want to look into what drives the dip in fifth grade math and sixth grade ELA with the school, since the rest of the profile suggests the building is capable of strong outcomes across subjects and grades. No multi-year trend data was available, so it is unclear whether these patterns are typical or specific to this year's cohorts.
The student body is predominantly white, with a substantial Black population and a meaningful share of students identified as two or more races. Hispanic, Asian, and American Indian or Alaska Native students each represent small slivers of enrollment. A substantial majority of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch. Data on students with individualized education programs and English learners was not reported, so those populations cannot be characterized here. The school is not a charter, and no magnet status was indicated.
Gulfport's housing market sits below the national benchmark but above the state benchmark, which places Lyman's attendance zone in a relatively affordable position for a coastal Mississippi community. Estimated monthly mortgage costs run higher than typical rents, and rent absorbs a moderate share of household income. Home values have appreciated modestly year over year, and rents have risen at a faster clip, so families weighing a purchase versus a rental near the school face a market where buying carries a higher monthly burden but values are not escalating sharply. The broader economic backdrop includes a national unemployment rate that has held steady and a thirty-year mortgage rate that has drifted in the mid-six range.
Several categories of information that parents often ask about were absent from the available data. No program offerings, course access, staffing figures, discipline records, or attendance rates were provided. No civil-rights data was included. No neighbor comparison fact-set was available to position Lyman against other schools in Harrison County. The district brief returned no parent-relevant changes of lasting impact from recent years, so there is nothing to report on referendums, curriculum overhauls, or facility shifts. Rather than guess at what those gaps contain, the honest read is that they are missing from what was provided.
What the assembled evidence does show is an elementary school with strong early-grade academic results, an exceptional fifth-grade science performance, a student body that reflects the racial and economic mix of the broader Gulfport area, and a housing market that remains within reach for many families by national standards. The soft spots in upper-elementary math and sixth-grade ELA are the place where a prospective parent would benefit most from a direct conversation with the school.
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