The top reported proficiency rate is 34% in Science. The lowest is 21% in English language arts.
Original Research by School Decision on Oak Park Elementary School
Oak Park Elementary School sits on Oak Park Avenue in Laurel, Mississippi, serving the community's youngest learners from pre-kindergarten through first grade. It is part of the Laurel School District, a public system covering nearly all of this small city in Jones County. The school operates as a conventional public school, and every student enrolled qualifies for free or reduced-price lunch. The student body is predominantly Black, with a Hispanic minority and a smaller share identified as two or more races.
Because Oak Park serves only the early grades, Mississippi's state accountability assessments do not directly apply to its current grade range. The MAAP tests begin at third grade, meaning a school ending at first grade would not generate proficiency results under its present configuration. The assessment data associated with Oak Park includes third-grade math and English language arts results from a recent school year and a fifth-grade science result from an earlier year. Both likely reflect a prior grade configuration rather than the school's current pre-kindergarten-through-first-grade band, though the available records do not state the reason for the discrepancy. Those results showed a modest share of students reaching proficiency in math, a lower share in English language arts, and a somewhat higher proficiency rate in science from the older testing period. The science assessment underwent a name and cut-score change, which limits comparability. A parent reviewing current academic outcomes for the grades actually served at Oak Park would find that state testing data is not available, since these early grades are not assessed at the state level. Early-literacy and numeracy measures that would be more relevant for this age group were not included in the records reviewed.
The school's enrollment is substantial for an early-childhood center, spread across pre-kindergarten, kindergarten, and first grade. Data on English learners and students with individualized education programs was not reported. Information on staffing, attendance, discipline, and course access was also not available.
Laurel is a city shaped by its timber-era origins, and that history is visible in the broad avenues and architecture of its historic district, listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The Lauren Rogers Museum of Art, Mississippi's oldest art museum, serves as a cultural anchor. Manufacturing remains a pillar of the local economy, with employers like Howard Industries, Sanderson Farms, and Masonite International alongside a healthcare sector anchored by South Central Regional Medical Center. In recent years, publicly reported attention from HGTV's "Hometown" series has drawn tourism and renovation activity to Laurel's downtown and older neighborhoods, bringing renewed interest after a long population decline tied to manufacturing losses. Interstate 59 runs through the city, connecting it to Hattiesburg and the broader south Mississippi region.
Housing in the school's zip code is affordable relative to both state and national benchmarks. Typical home values sit well below the Mississippi statewide figure and far below the national median, and the area has seen a modest recent decline in values. Rent data was not available for this location. The price-to-income ratio suggests owning remains within reach for local wage earners compared with much of the country, though the current mortgage rate environment adds cost.
The Laurel School District's recent strategic priorities or programmatic changes were not surfaced in available records, so there is little to report on district-level initiatives that might shape Oak Park's offerings.
For a parent weighing Oak Park, the picture is one of a public early-childhood school serving a high-need population in an affordable, historically rich small city experiencing a measured revival. The absence of current state testing results follows from the grade band, since these early grades are simply not assessed at the state level. The older proficiency figures, while not directly applicable to today's configuration, suggest that when the school served tested grades, results were mixed, and a parent may want to look into current early-literacy and numeracy supports with the school directly. The universal free-lunch eligibility and the community's economic context point to a school where poverty concentration is high, and where the quality of early intervention and foundational instruction will matter a great deal.
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