The top reported proficiency rate is 52% in Science. The lowest is 36% in English language arts.
Original Research by School Decision on Holly Springs Intermediate School
Holly Springs Intermediate School sits in the heart of a small North Mississippi county seat, serving the middle grades of the Holly Springs School District. The school covers grades four through six, occupying a narrow but important band in a child's academic life, the years when students shift from learning to read toward reading to learn, and when social dynamics begin to reshape the classroom. It is a small school by any measure, with an enrollment that fits comfortably in the range typical for a single intermediate building in a town of this size.
The student body is overwhelmingly Black, reflecting the community it serves. Nearly every student qualifies for free or reduced-price lunch, which places the school firmly in the category of high-poverty education. The town itself carries deep historical roots. Holly Springs is the seat of Marshall County, built around a courthouse square with antebellum homes and several National Register historic districts. Rust College, a historically Black college founded in the Reconstruction era, sits within the town and serves as both a civic anchor and a local employer. Manufacturing in the area includes plastics, filtration equipment, and windows, and cotton remains tied to the regional economy. The town sits roughly an hour southeast of Memphis along Interstate 22, close enough to feel the pull of a major metro but far enough to retain its own identity. Publicly reported sources describe a population in long-term decline, tied to agricultural mechanization, the Great Migration, and postwar industrial relocation to larger cities, with no major new housing developments identified.
On state assessments through the Mississippi Academic Assessment Program, the school's results paint a mixed picture that varies by subject and grade. In mathematics, the younger grades show lower proficiency, with a smaller share of fourth and fifth graders reaching proficient or above. Sixth grade tells a different story, with a clear jump in math proficiency that stands as the school's strongest academic result. English language arts runs in nearly the opposite direction. Fourth and fifth grade ELA proficiency sits at a moderate level, but sixth grade ELA drops noticeably, representing the weakest result across the tested subjects. Fifth grade science lands in a solid middle range, with roughly half of tested students reaching proficiency. No multi-year trend data was available, so it is hard to say whether these patterns are stable or shifting. Participation rates were not reported. A parent looking at these results may want to ask the school what drives the divergence between sixth grade math and sixth grade ELA, and what supports are in place for the earlier grades where proficiency lags.
Several data categories the field usually relies on were missing entirely. No IEP or English learner counts were reported, so the picture of special populations is incomplete. The school does not serve high school grades, so there is no graduation rate to report, and no college- or career-readiness data applies. No civil-rights data on discipline, access, or staffing was provided. No information on programs, course offerings, extracurriculars, or magnet status was available. We looked for recent district-level changes or strategic priorities and found little, so we left that out rather than guess.
The housing market around the school is modest by any standard. Home values in the school's zip code sit below the Mississippi state benchmark and well below national figures, with a slight year-over-year decline. The price-to-income ratio is low relative to national norms, which means ownership is comparatively reachable for working families in the area, though mortgage rates hover in a range that still stretches monthly budgets. No rental market data was available for this location.
What this school offers is a small, community-rooted intermediate setting in an affordable historic town within commuting distance of Memphis. The academic results show real strength in sixth grade math and a solid fifth grade science showing, alongside weaker spots in earlier grade math and sixth grade ELA that a parent would want to understand better before enrolling. The gaps in the available data, particularly around special populations and program offerings, mean that a visit to the school and a conversation with school leadership would fill in pieces this profile cannot.
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