Smithville High School, Smithville MS

Original Research by School Decision on Smithville High School

Smithville High School is a single campus serving pre-kindergarten through twelfth grade in the Monroe County School District, tucked into a very small town along the Tennessee-Tombigbee Waterway in northeast Mississippi. The school sits just off Mississippi Highway 25, which connects Smithville to Fulton to the north and Amory to the south. The town is primarily residential with a high homeownership rate, and the local economy runs on health care, retail, and manufacturing in roughly equal measure. No specific major employers surface in the available data, and the community is car-dependent with no public transit to speak of. Housing here is genuinely affordable relative to both state and national benchmarks, with typical home values sitting below the Mississippi median and well below the national one. The price-to-income ratio is low, which matters for families weighing a move into the attendance zone.

The town's recent history is shaped by recovery from a devastating EF5 tornado that destroyed city hall, the post office, the police station, and several churches, all of which have since been rebuilt. Population and employment have grown modestly in the years since, and median property values have risen at a gentle pace. Publicly reported growth figures suggest a community that is small but stabilizing rather than declining. No major new housing developments were identified in the available research.

Academically, the strongest results at Smithville come in the early grades. Third-grade math proficiency is exceptionally high, and fourth- and fifth-grade math remain strong. Fifth-grade science is similarly impressive. English language arts starts solidly in third grade and holds reasonably well through fifth. The pattern shifts as students move into the upper elementary and middle grades. By sixth grade, math proficiency dips, and by seventh and eighth grade it falls to a level where roughly half of tested students meet the proficiency bar. ELA follows a similar downward trajectory, with sixth through eighth grade landing around the midpoint. A parent seeing this might want to look into how the school supports students through the transition into the upper grades, particularly in math, where the drop is most pronounced.

The school serves a relatively small student body across all thirteen grade levels, which means each grade cohort is compact. The student population is predominantly white, with very small numbers of students from other racial or ethnic backgrounds. Just under half of the students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch. Data on English learners and students with individualized education programs was not available, so those figures are left out rather than estimated.

Several categories of information that parents often ask about were not available in the provided data. There is no graduation rate, no high school-level state assessment results, no course access or program listing, no staffing information, and no civil-rights or discipline data. The district brief returned no parent-relevant changes from recent years. These gaps mean the picture here is incomplete, particularly for families considering the high school years. The academic data covers only grades three through eight, and a family with a high-school-aged student would need to go directly to the school for information about upper-grade offerings, college preparation, and graduation outcomes.

What the available data does show is a small, rural, community-rooted school with genuine academic strength in its earliest tested grades, a clear slide in the middle grades, and a housing market that makes living in the attendance zone financially accessible. For a family with young children, the early-grade performance is a real positive. For a family with older students, the absence of high-school-level data means the conversation with the school itself becomes more important.

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Academic performance

State test results and graduation outcomes.

Graduation rate (ACGR)

80-89%Cohort of 36 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 394%

School 94% · District 76% · ▲ 18 pts above district

▲ 44 pts above state median

Grade 485%

School 85% · District 72% · ▲ 12 pts above district

▲ 34 pts above state median

Grade 588%

School 88% · District 66% · ▲ 22 pts above district

▲ 46 pts above state median

Grade 680%

School 80% · District 71% · ▲ 9 pts above district

▲ 29 pts above state median

Grade 769%

School 69% · District 63% · ▲ 6 pts above district

▲ 17 pts above state median

Grade 851%

School 51% · District 64% · ▼ 13 pts below district

▲ 7 pts above state median

English language arts

Grade 382%

School 82% · District 63% · ▲ 19 pts above district

▲ 35 pts above state median

Grade 475%

School 75% · District 66% · ▲ 9 pts above district

▲ 26 pts above state median

Grade 570%

School 70% · District 65% · ▲ 5 pts above district

▲ 19 pts above state median

Grade 655%

School 55% · District 53% · ▲ 3 pts above district

▲ 13 pts above state median

Grade 753%

School 53% · District 47% · ▲ 6 pts above district

▲ 21 pts above state median

Grade 851%

School 51% · District 47% · ▲ 4 pts above district

▲ 15 pts above state median

Science

Grade 588%

School 88% · District 74% · ▲ 14 pts above district

▲ 24 pts above state median

Grade 859%

School 59% · District 67% · ▼ 8 pts below district

▲ 6 pts above state median

This schoolMONROE 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.