The top reported proficiency rate is 47% in Science. The lowest is 17% in Math.
Original Research by School Decision on Oak Forest Elementary School
Oak Forest Elementary sits on Smallwood Drive in south Jackson, part of the Jackson Public School District. It serves kindergarten through fifth grade in a neighborhood where housing values run well below the state midpoint and far below the national one, making this one of the more affordable pockets of the capital city for families looking to buy. Rents are similarly modest. The surrounding zip code has seen home values dip slightly year over year, while rents have crept up a bit, a pattern that can make renting feel comparatively stable even as ownership costs stay low.
The school's enrollment is small for an elementary serving six grade levels. Its student body is almost entirely Black, with only a handful of students from other racial backgrounds. Every student qualifies for free or reduced-price lunch, which places Oak Forest firmly among schools serving communities with concentrated economic need. The school is not a charter and carries no magnet designation in the available data. We looked for Title I status, staffing figures, attendance patterns, discipline data, and special-population counts for IEP and English learner students, but none of these were reported in the data provided, so we cannot speak to them.
On Mississippi's MAAP assessments for the most recent school year, Oak Forest's results are mixed and generally low. In math, proficiency rates across grades three, four, and five sit well below what the state would consider strong performance. Grade four math stands out as the relative bright spot, with a higher share of students reaching proficiency than the adjacent grades. Grade five math is the lowest of the three. In English language arts, the same pattern holds: grade four performs strongest, while grades three and five trail behind. Fifth-grade science tells a different story. Nearly half of tested fifth graders reached proficiency, a result that stands well above the school's math and ELA numbers and suggests that hands-on, content-rich instruction may be landing more effectively in that subject.
These results come with an honest caveat. No multi-year trend data was available, so we cannot say whether proficiency is improving, declining, or holding steady. Participation rates were also missing from the state data set. A parent trying to understand whether these scores reflect a transient dip or a persistent pattern may want to ask the school directly about trends over time and about what supports are in place for the grades where proficiency is lowest.
Jackson itself is Mississippi's capital and largest city, though it has been shrinking. Publicly reported sources describe the largest percentage population decline of any major American city over the last census decade, a contraction that has reshaped neighborhoods and pushed commercial activity toward suburban Madison and Rankin counties. The city sits on the Pearl River at the crossing of Interstates 20 and 55, and its economy leans on state government, the University of Mississippi Medical Center, Jackson Public Schools, and a Nissan manufacturing plant. Cultural institutions cluster near downtown, including the Mississippi Civil Rights Museum and the Museum of Mississippi History, while Jackson State University and Millsaps College serve as civic anchors. The city has contended with serious infrastructure problems, most visibly a water crisis that drew national attention. Development pressure has shifted outward, but the metro area remains the largest in the state.
Oak Forest's parent district, Jackson Public Schools, recently adopted a strategic plan covering the next several years, publicly reported as aiming to set district-wide goals for curriculum, instruction, and resource allocation. We searched for more specific changes around referendums, property taxes, or curriculum overhauls but found little beyond that plan, so we left those gaps alone rather than guess.
For a family considering Oak Forest, the picture is one of a small, community-rooted elementary school in an affordable part of a capital city working through deep challenges. The science results hint at what the school can do well. The math and reading results, particularly in the lower elementary grades, are areas a parent would want to explore further with school leadership before deciding whether this is the right fit.
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