The top reported proficiency rate is 87% in Science. The lowest is 41% in English language arts.
Original Research by School Decision on Edna M Scott Elementary School
Edna M. Scott Elementary sits in Leland, a small Mississippi Delta town on Deer Creek in Washington County. The school serves grades one through five and is the sole elementary campus in the Leland School District, feeding into Leland School Park for middle grades and Leland High School. It is a traditional public school, not a charter or magnet. The enrollment is small for its grade band, and the student body is predominantly Black, with small representation across Hispanic, white, multiracial, and Asian students. Every student qualifies for free or reduced-price meals, which reflects the deep economic need in the surrounding community.
Leland itself is a quiet agricultural town. Farming has been the economic base since before the Civil War, and major employers today include an agricultural research station operated by Mississippi State University and the USDA at Stoneville, along with numerous private agribusiness firms handling cotton, soybeans, rice, corn, and catfish. The downtown core along the historic street grid holds heritage sites like the Jim Henson Exhibit, the Highway 61 Blues Museum, and the Mississippi Wildlife Heritage Museum. Five Mississippi Blues Trail markers commemorate the town's musical legacy. The town has been contracting in population, and no major new housing developments or commercial expansion projects surfaced in publicly reported sources. The city's official website references a vision of inclusive growth and investment in youth and underserved neighborhoods, but concrete projects were not identified.
The housing market around the school is very affordable by any standard. Home values sit far below both the Mississippi state benchmark and the national benchmark, and the price-to-income ratio is well below the national figure. At the same time, values have been declining year over year, which tells you something about demand and the broader economic trajectory of the area. Rent data was not available. For families considering buying, the cost barrier is low, but so is appreciation potential.
On state assessments, Mississippi tests students starting in grade three, so first and second graders at Edna M. Scott do not yet produce proficiency results. Science is assessed only in fifth grade. The available results show a mixed but interesting picture. Math proficiency rises steadily from third grade through fifth grade, with the oldest tested students reaching a solid majority proficient. ELA proficiency is more uneven across the three tested grades, hovering below half in each. The standout result is fifth-grade science, where the large majority of tested students reached proficiency. That is a real bright spot and suggests the school is delivering strong science instruction in the upper elementary years. Participation rate data was not reported, so a parent may want to confirm with the school whether all eligible students were tested.
Several categories of information were missing from what we received. No data on staffing, teacher experience, class sizes, course access, discipline, attendance, or Title I status was available. IEP and English learner counts were also missing. The district brief turned up little of lasting impact in publicly reported sources, with search results showing routine district profile material, summer program announcements, and staff awards rather than major policy changes or strategic initiatives. Civil rights data was not provided. None of these gaps should be read as a negative signal on their own; they reflect what was and was not available in the data we looked at.
What emerges from the assembled evidence is a small, high-poverty elementary school in a rural Delta community, serving an almost entirely Black student body, with uneven literacy and math results but a genuinely strong showing in fifth-grade science. The surrounding town offers agricultural employment, cultural heritage, and affordable housing, but limited growth and few civic amenities beyond the downtown corridor. Families drawn to Leland by roots, work, or cost of living will find a school that appears to be doing some things well, particularly in the upper elementary grades, while leaving room for questions about literacy outcomes that the school would be best positioned to answer directly.
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