The top reported proficiency rate is 47% in Science. The lowest is 36% in Math.
Original Research by School Decision on Hazlehurst Elementary School
Hazlehurst Elementary School sits in a small county-seat town about thirty miles south of Jackson, Mississippi, along Interstate 55. It is part of the Hazlehurst City School District and serves children from pre-kindergarten through fifth grade. The enrollment is moderate for a small-town elementary, with students spread fairly evenly across the grade levels and a pre-kindergarten program for the youngest learners.
The student body is predominantly Black, with a substantial Hispanic presence and very small shares of white and multiracial students. Every child in the building qualifies for free or reduced-price lunch, which reflects the economic conditions in the surrounding community and means the school operates with the federal supports that come with serving a high-poverty population. Data on English learners and students with individualized education programs was not reported, so a parent wanting to understand those services would need to ask the school directly.
On state assessments, the most recent results show a school where the upper elementary grades perform better than the lower ones. In third and fourth grade, proficiency in both math and English language arts sits below where most families would want it, with roughly a quarter to a third of students reaching proficient levels. By fifth grade, the picture shifts. Proficiency climbs noticeably in math, English language arts, and science, with close to half of fifth graders meeting the bar across those subjects. That upward movement within the building suggests something is working better for older students, though the school does not have trend data available to show whether this pattern is stable or improving over time. Participation rates for the assessments were not reported. A parent may want to look into this further with the school, particularly to understand how the early grades are being supported before students reach the stronger fifth-grade results.
The town of Hazlehurst is agricultural at its core, with tomatoes and cabbage historically anchoring the local economy. Downtown centers on the Copiah County courthouse, framed by magnolia trees, with local retail and a former train depot that now houses the Mississippi Music Museum. The town has a traditional grid layout, but walkability is largely limited to the downtown core and nearby residential streets. An Amtrak station provides daily rail service connecting Hazlehurst to Jackson and New Orleans. The town has been experiencing population decline over the past two decades, and no major new housing developments or growth projects were identified in publicly reported sources.
Housing here is affordable relative to both state and national benchmarks, with typical home values well below the Mississippi average and far below the national figure. Home values have been roughly flat, edging down slightly year over year, while the state as a whole has seen modest gains. The price-to-income ratio sits below the national level, which means buying a home in this area requires a smaller share of income than in most of the country. Rental data was not available.
Information on discipline, course access, staffing, attendance, and specific academic programs was not available in the data provided. The school is not a charter school. Whether it operates as a Title I school was not reported, though given that the entire student body qualifies for free or reduced-price lunch, it almost certainly qualifies. We looked for recent district-level changes such as curriculum shifts, referendums, or tax measures and found little of lasting impact in publicly reported sources, so that context is left out rather than guessed at.
Hazlehurst Elementary serves a community where resources are limited but where fifth-grade academic results show real strength. Families considering this school would benefit from asking about how the early grades are supported, what interventions are in place to lift third- and fourth-grade proficiency, and what the trajectory looks like for students who move through the full grade span here.
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