Nanih Waiya Attendance Center, Louisville MS

Original Research by School Decision on Nanih Waiya Attendance Center

Nanih Waiya Attendance Center sits along Highway 397 outside Louisville, the county seat of Winston County in east-central Mississippi. It is one of the schools in the Louisville Municipal School District and serves a wide grade span, from kindergarten through twelfth grade under one roof. For a family considering this school, that single-campus structure means a child can move from early elementary through high school graduation without changing buildings, which some parents find stabilizing and others find limiting in terms of exposure to different school environments over the years.

The enrollment is modest for a school covering so many grades. Class sizes at each tested grade tend to run in the low dozens, which generally means students are known individually by their teachers. The student body is majority white, with a meaningful Black population and a small American Indian or Alaska Native presence, along with a handful of students identifying as two or more races. Every student qualifies for free or reduced-price lunch, which reflects the broader economic conditions of the surrounding area. We looked for information on English learners and special-education enrollment and found none reported, so those figures are absent rather than negligible.

On Mississippi's MAAP assessments, the most recent results show a school that performs respectably in the elementary and early middle grades, with some softening as students move toward eighth grade. In math, proficiency starts above the midpoint in third grade, rises in fourth, then dips through the middle grades, with eighth grade landing as the weakest. ELA follows a more uneven pattern: third and fourth grade sit around the midpoint, fifth grade stands out as a clear strength, sixth and seventh slide, and eighth rebounds to a solid showing. Science results, available only for fifth and eighth grades, are a bright point, with both grades performing well above the midpoint. A parent with a child entering the upper middle grades may want to look into the dip in math and ELA proficiency there and ask the school what supports are in place.

We found no high school level assessment data in the state results, no graduation rate, and no information about advanced course offerings, career pathways, or dual-credit programs. For a school that serves through twelfth grade, those are substantial gaps. A parent of a high-school-bound student would want to ask directly about what the upper grades offer and how graduates fare after leaving.

The surrounding community shapes what this school is. Louisville is a small rural city whose economy runs on forestry, wood products, agriculture, logistics, steel, and manufacturing, with a historic downtown along Main Street anchored by the Strand Theatre and the American Heritage Fire Museum. The population has been declining over the past two decades. The town was struck by a devastating EF4 tornado several years back that killed ten people and caused widespread damage, and a memorial now stands in town. Recovery and rebuilding have followed. Publicly reported sources describe newly developed business districts, though no specific housing projects or major employers were identified. No parks, library, or transit system were named in the available research.

Housing in the school's zip code is quite affordable compared with both the state and national medians, with typical home values sitting well below the Mississippi benchmark and far below the national one. The price-to-income ratio suggests that homeownership is within reach for many local households relative to broader national patterns. Rental data was not available.

The district brief turned up no recently reported changes of parent relevance: no referendums, curriculum overhauls, or property-tax shifts surfaced in the search, so there is little to relay on that front.

What this school appears to offer is a small, unified K-through-twenty setting in a rural community where housing is affordable and the economy is rooted in traditional industries. The academic picture is solid in the early grades and science, uneven in the upper middle grades, and largely undescribed at the high school level. Families drawn to continuity and closeness may find it a good fit, provided they ask the right questions about what happens after eighth grade.

See more original research from School Decision →

Academic performance

State test results and graduation outcomes.

Graduation rate (ACGR)

>=90%Cohort of 58 students · Class of 2021

The federal source publishes a banded range instead of an exact rate when the graduating cohort is small enough that an exact number could risk identifying individual students.

How this school compares to all schools in this state

Each dot is one school’s SY 2020-21 graduation rate, binned by integer rate. Taller columns mean more schools at that rate. This school is highlighted.

241 schools plotted. 29 additional schools' rates are federally suppressed and not shown. Data: EDFacts SY 2020-21.

Math

Grade 359%

School 59% · District 46% · ▲ 14 pts above district

▲ 9 pts above state median

Grade 468%

School 68% · District 42% · ▲ 26 pts above district

▲ 17 pts above state median

Grade 551%

School 51% · District 45% · ▲ 6 pts above district

▲ 9 pts above state median

Grade 657%

School 57% · District 45% · ▲ 12 pts above district

▲ 6 pts above state median

Grade 756%

School 56% · District 49% · ▲ 7 pts above district

▲ 4 pts above state median

Grade 846%

School 46% · District 40% · ▲ 5 pts above district

▲ 2 pts above state median

English language arts

Grade 350%

School 50% · District 39% · ▲ 11 pts above district

▲ 2 pts above state median

Grade 450%

School 50% · District 43% · ▲ 7 pts above district

▲ 1 pts above state median

Grade 571%

School 71% · District 53% · ▲ 17 pts above district

▲ 20 pts above state median

Grade 647%

School 47% · District 37% · ▲ 10 pts above district

▲ 5 pts above state median

Grade 744%

School 44% · District 29% · ▲ 15 pts above district

▲ 12 pts above state median

Grade 867%

School 67% · District 36% · ▲ 30 pts above district

▲ 30 pts above state median

Science

Grade 568%

School 68% · District 59% · ▲ 9 pts above district

▲ 4 pts above state median

Grade 861%

School 61% · District 45% · ▲ 16 pts above district

▲ 7 pts above state median

This schoolLOUISVILLE MUNICIPAL 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.