The top reported proficiency rate is 29% in Math. The lowest is 12% in English language arts.
Original Research by School Decision on Ida Greene Elementary School
Ida Greene Elementary School sits on Fourth Street in Belzoni, the county seat of Humphreys County, Mississippi. It is part of the Humphreys County School District and serves children from kindergarten through fourth grade. The school is not a charter or magnet school. Enrollment is moderate for an elementary school serving this grade range.
The student body is nearly entirely Black, with only a handful of children identifying as Hispanic, white, or multiracial. Every student qualifies for free or reduced-price lunch, which places this school among the most economically concentrated in the state. Data on English learners and students with individualized education programs was not available, so those populations cannot be described here.
On the most recent Mississippi Academic Assessment Program results, proficiency was low across both subjects and both tested grades. Third-grade math had the strongest showing, with roughly a third of tested students reaching proficient or above. Fourth-grade math was lower. English language arts results were weaker still, with only a small fraction of third- and fourth-graders demonstrating proficiency. These results come from a single school year, and no multi-year trend data was available, so it is not possible to say whether performance is improving, holding, or declining. Participation rates for the assessments were also missing. A parent weighing this school may want to ask the administration what the instructional plan is for reading and math acceleration and how the school is responding to these results.
The town of Belzoni is a small agricultural community in the Mississippi Delta, publicly reported as the self-proclaimed Farm-Raised Catfish Capital of the World. Catfish aquaculture dominates the local economy, with pond acreage across the county and processing operations that employ a large share of residents. Humphreys County government, as the county seat, is another employer, and the school district itself provides education-sector jobs. The town's population has been in long-term decline, falling steadily over recent decades with no major housing developments or growth projects on the horizon. The downtown is compact, with a courthouse and a few small businesses, and the World Catfish Festival each April is the one event that brings outside visitors. Day-to-day life is quiet and car-dependent. No public library or transit system was identified in publicly reported sources.
Housing in the area is very inexpensive relative to state and national benchmarks. Estimated monthly mortgage costs are low, and the price-to-income ratio sits near the national level, meaning local wages broadly track local home prices. Rent data was not available. Home values have been rising modestly in recent months, but the base is so low that the area remains one of the most affordable housing markets a family could find. For a family already tied to the local agricultural economy, housing costs are unlikely to be a barrier.
The Humphreys County School District operates several schools in the area, including a high school, junior high, upper elementary, career and technical center, and Ida Greene as the lower elementary. The district has faced serious governance challenges in the past, including a state takeover into the Mississippi Achievement School District, though publicly reported research found that event falls outside the recent window and no other lasting parent-relevant changes from roughly the last several years were identified. Information on Title I status, discipline practices, staffing levels, attendance patterns, and specific program offerings at Ida Greene was not available in the data provided. A parent considering this school would be well served by asking directly about classroom staffing, available interventions for reading and math, and what wraparound supports exist given that every child here comes from a household meeting income-eligibility thresholds.
The school does not have a graduation rate, a college-readiness profile, or advanced coursework data, which is expected for a building that stops at fourth grade. State testing begins in third grade, so only two grade levels here produce assessment results. That leaves kindergarten through second grade without published proficiency data, which is normal for Mississippi and not a gap unique to this school.
What Ida Greene offers is a small, community-rooted elementary setting in one of the most affordable places to live in the state, serving a student population that is almost entirely Black and entirely income-eligible for federal lunch programs. The academic results are low, and a family considering enrolling here should treat that as a central question to raise with school leaders rather than a reason to dismiss the school outright. The context in which this school operates, a declining Delta town built around catfish farming with limited civic infrastructure, shapes nearly everything about what the school is and what resources it can draw on.
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