The top reported proficiency rate is 44% in Math. The lowest is 38% in Science.
Original Research by School Decision on Leake County Elementary School
Leake County Elementary School sits in Walnut Grove, a small rural town in Leake County, Mississippi, and serves children from kindergarten through sixth grade. It is part of the Leake County School District, the county's sole public district. The school sits on School Street, and the town's municipal offices cluster along a traditional Main Street layout a short distance away. Golden Memorial State Park lies just east of town, providing a nearby recreational anchor.
Walnut Grove's recent history is unusual and worth understanding. The town was once shaped almost entirely by the Walnut Grove Youth Correctional Facility, a privately operated juvenile prison that, at its peak, held more people than the town itself had residents. That facility closed several years ago following state and federal investigations and a class-action lawsuit, and the town's population dropped sharply afterward. Publicly reported sources describe a community still in a period of contraction and recovery, with limited commercial activity, a very low homeownership rate, and median household income well below the surrounding county's. No current major employers have been identified since the prison closure. Housing values in the area are modest compared with both state and national benchmarks, and estimated mortgage costs reflect that affordability. Still, the low homeownership rate means many families in this attendance zone are renting rather than buying.
The school itself is small, with an enrollment that fits its grade band. Every student qualifies for free or reduced-price lunch, which places the school firmly in a high-poverty context. The student body is predominantly Black, with a White minority and small Hispanic, multiracial, American Indian, and Asian populations. Data on students with individualized education programs and English learners was not available, so those population sizes are not reflected here.
On state assessments, Leake County Elementary's results are mixed across grades and subjects. In mathematics, third and fourth graders showed the strongest performance, with roughly half of tested students reaching proficiency. Fifth grade math was the weakest result, with about a third of students proficient, and sixth grade landed in between. English language arts followed a similar pattern, with third and fourth grades performing better than fifth and sixth. Fifth grade again stood out as the lowest, with about a third of students proficient in both math and ELA. Science was tested only in fifth grade, where results were also modest. Participation rates were not reported. A parent looking at these numbers may want to ask the school what supports are in place for fifth grade specifically, since that grade's results lag behind the others across multiple subjects. No multi-year trend data was available, so it is not possible to say whether these results represent improvement or decline from prior years.
Several categories of information that would help round out the picture were absent from the available data. The school's Title I status, locale classification, discipline data, course access details, staffing ratios, and attendance figures were all missing. No civil-rights data was provided. No information about specialized programs, extracurricular offerings, or before- and after-school care was available. The district brief turned up no parent-relevant changes in the recent past. These gaps mean the portrait here is limited to what state testing, enrollment, and the community context can tell you.
What the available data describes is a small, high-poverty elementary school serving a rural community that has been through a major economic disruption. The school's academic results are uneven, with some grades performing reasonably well and others, especially fifth grade, showing room for growth. Families considering this school would benefit from visiting and asking directly about instructional support, staffing stability, and what the school is doing to address the grades where proficiency dips.
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