New Hebron Attendance Center, New Hebron MS

Original Research by School Decision on New Hebron Attendance Center

New Hebron Attendance Center sits on Golden Bear Lane in the town of New Hebron, a very small rural community in Lawrence County, Mississippi. The town grew up around a Gulf and Ship Island Railroad branch depot and was once a modest trade center, but today it has contracted to little more than a residential grid anchored by three churches and a town hall on Main Avenue. Publicly reported sources note that New Hebron's population has declined over recent decades, and no new housing developments or commercial growth projects were identified. The town has no public library or transit system. Civic life centers on town hall, the churches, and the municipal water utility, with board meetings held the first Tuesday evening of each month.

The school serves students from kindergarten through eighth grade as part of the Lawrence County School District. Students then move on to county secondary schools, with the district's high school located in Monticello, the county seat, rather than in New Hebron itself. Enrollment is small for a school covering nine grade levels, which means each grade cohort is quite compact. The student body is predominantly Black, with a substantial White minority and a small number of students identifying as two or more races. Nearly every student qualifies for free or reduced-price lunch, reflecting the limited economic conditions of the surrounding community. Data on English learner status and special education enrollment was not available, so those populations cannot be characterized here.

On Mississippi's MAAP assessments for the most recent school year, results paint a mixed and grade-dependent picture. In math, proficiency varies widely across the tested grades. Fifth grade stands out as a relative bright spot, while fourth and especially seventh grade show considerably fewer students reaching proficiency. Third and sixth grade land in a middle range, and eighth grade sits below that. The pattern in English language arts is similar in its variability. Third and fifth grade show a good share of students at or above proficiency, and eighth grade rebounds to a solid level. Seventh grade ELA results are very low, and fourth and sixth grade sit toward the lower end as well. Participation rates were not reported for any grade or subject, so it is unclear whether all enrolled students were tested.

Science results, assessed only in fifth and eighth grade, are the school's strongest relative showing. Fifth grade science proficiency is particularly high, and eighth grade science is also solid. This is the clearest area of academic strength in the available data. A parent may want to ask the school what supports are in place for the middle grades, particularly seventh, where both math and ELA results dip sharply.

The community's housing market is very affordable compared with state and national benchmarks. Typical home values in the school's zip code sit well below the Mississippi statewide level and far below the national level. Estimated monthly mortgage costs are modest. No rental market data was available for the area, which is consistent with a very small rural community where rental inventory may be limited or informal.

What the data does not cover is worth naming. We looked for information on the district's recent strategic priorities or parent-relevant changes and found nothing that could be confirmed, so that is left out rather than guessed. No discipline data, course access information, staffing levels, or attendance figures were provided. The school's Title I status and locale classification were also not available. With a student population this small, year-to-year results can shift considerably with each cohort, and single-year proficiency figures should be read with that in mind.

New Hebron Attendance Center is a small, rural, high-poverty school serving a close-knit community. Its science outcomes are a genuine strength, its early-grade results in math and ELA are encouraging, and its middle-grade performance is an area a parent would want to understand better before enrolling an older child.

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Academic performance

How students perform on state tests, by grade, set against the district.

Math

Grade 343%

School 43% · District 46% · ▼ 3 pts below district

▼ 7 pts below state median

Grade 423%

School 23% · District 28% · ▼ 4 pts below district

▼ 27 pts below state median

Grade 556%

School 56% · District 31% · ▲ 25 pts above district

▲ 14 pts above state median

Grade 640%

School 40% · District 46% · ▼ 6 pts below district

▼ 11 pts below state median

Grade 721%

School 21% · District 52% · ▼ 31 pts below district

▼ 31 pts below state median

Grade 829%

School 29% · District 44% · ▼ 15 pts below district

▼ 15 pts below state median

English language arts

Grade 357%

School 57% · District 50% · ▲ 7 pts above district

▲ 9 pts above state median

Grade 427%

School 27% · District 34% · ▼ 7 pts below district

▼ 22 pts below state median

Grade 556%

School 56% · District 48% · ▲ 8 pts above district

▲ 5 pts above state median

Grade 630%

School 30% · District 38% · ▼ 8 pts below district

▼ 12 pts below state median

Grade 79%

School 9% · District 29% · ▼ 20 pts below district

▼ 23 pts below state median

Grade 850%

School 50% · District 37% · ▲ 13 pts above district

▲ 14 pts above state median

Science

Grade 578%

School 78% · District 59% · ▲ 19 pts above district

▲ 13 pts above state median

Grade 861%

School 61% · District 60%

▲ 7 pts above state median

This schoolLAWRENCE CO SCHOOL DIST, same grade

Graduation rate (ACGR) reflects the federally published Adjusted Cohort Graduation Rate for the most recent year available. We refresh this data annually at the close of each academic year in June. The federal source publishes a banded rate (for example, "90-94%") instead of an exact number for cohorts small enough to risk identifying individual students. The state distribution chart, where shown, plots every school in the state with a published rate or band; schools whose rate is federally suppressed are excluded. Where the federal source publishes a band rather than an exact rate, the school is placed within its band using a stable, ID-derived offset, so its position is consistent across visits.