The top reported proficiency rate is 69% in Math. The lowest is 54% in English language arts.
Original Research by School Decision on Wj Quarles Elementary School
WJ Quarles Elementary sits on Quarles Street in Long Beach, a small residential community pressed against the Gulf of Mexico in the Gulfport-Biloxi metropolitan area. The school serves the earliest learners in the Long Beach School District, from prekindergarten through third grade, and it is one of several elementary campuses the district operates across the city. Long Beach began as an agricultural town built on radish farming and later turned toward tourism as its beachfront drew visitors. Publicly reported sources note that the city is still recovering from Hurricane Katrina, with residents returning and condominiums being repaired, though business activity along the beachfront has not returned to pre-storm levels partly because of FEMA and MEMA building codes. The University of Southern Mississippi's Gulf Park campus occupies a beachfront site on East Beach Boulevard and is a major civic institution, the only four-year public institution on the Mississippi Gulf Coast. The city holds a Mississippi Main Street Community designation, pointing to a traditional downtown corridor, though no detailed walkability or transit information was available.
The school itself is a neighborhood elementary with a total enrollment in the modest range for its grade band. A substantial share of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch. The student body is majority white, with Black students representing the next largest group, followed by students of two or more races. Asian and Hispanic students make up smaller portions. The school does not appear to be a charter or magnet school; it is a traditional public school within the district.
On the most recent state assessments, third graders at Quarles posted strong results in math, with a clear majority of tested students scoring proficient or above. English language arts results for the same grade were moderate, with a little over half of tested third graders reaching proficiency. The math performance stands out as a relative strength and suggests the school's early-grade instruction is producing solid numeracy outcomes. ELA results are more mixed, and a parent may want to look into this further with the school to understand how reading instruction and intervention are structured across the early grades.
Because Quarles serves only prekindergarten through third grade, several metrics that parents might expect simply do not apply here. There is no graduation rate, no high school course access data, and no college or career readiness information, all because the school does not serve those grade levels. State testing is limited to third grade, the earliest tested year in Mississippi, so the assessment picture covers only a slice of the school's students. The prekindergarten, kindergarten, first-grade, and second-grade cohorts are not assessed by the state, which is typical for those grade bands.
Some data we expected was missing and the source did not explain why. IEP counts and English learner counts were not reported, so we cannot characterize the size of those populations or the level of specialized support the school provides. Participation rates for the state assessments were also missing. Civil-rights indicators such as discipline, attendance, and staffing were not available in the provided data, so those dimensions of school life are left out rather than guessed. We looked for program offerings such as gifted, arts, or STEM enrichment and found nothing reported, so the narrative does not cover them. We also searched for recent district-level changes in policy, curriculum, or funding that might affect families and found none that cleared a lasting-impact threshold, so that section is omitted.
On the housing side, Long Beach sits in Harrison County. Home values in the school's zip code are above the state benchmark but well below the national one, making the area relatively affordable for a coastal Gulf community. Rents are moderate, and the gap between estimated monthly mortgage costs and rent is narrow, which means families weighing buying versus renting face a close call. The local housing market has seen only slight year-over-year price movement, consistent with a community in steady recovery rather than rapid expansion.
For a parent weighing Quarles, the picture is of a small early-childhood and primary school in a recovering Gulf Coast town, with solid math outcomes in the tested grade and room to ask questions about reading performance. The missing civil-rights and staffing data means families should contact the school directly for information about discipline practices, class sizes, and support services, since those details are not in the available record.
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