The top reported proficiency rate is 51% in Science. The lowest is 34% in Math.
Original Research by School Decision on Moss Point Escatawpa Upper Elem
Moss Point Escatawpa Upper Elementary sits on Jamestown Road in Moss Point, Mississippi, serving third through fifth graders in the Moss Point Separate School District. The school draws from a working river city at the confluence of the Escatawpa and Pascagoula Rivers, a place shaped by menhaden fishing, short-line freight rail, and aerospace manufacturing. The community has weathered repeated disasters, including Hurricane Katrina and an EF-2 tornado in June 2023 that damaged the high school gym while students sheltered inside. The city describes itself as still a working town, and that identity runs through the school's context.
The enrollment is modest for its grade band, with roughly equal numbers across the three tested grades plus a small ungraded group. Every student qualifies for free or reduced-price lunch, which places the school squarely in a high-poverty setting. The student body is predominantly Black, with smaller White, Hispanic, multiracial, and Asian populations. The school is not a charter and has no magnet designation reported. We looked for information on Title I status, staffing ratios, discipline data, attendance figures, and course access, but none of those fields were available in the data provided. English-learner and special-education counts were also missing. A parent wanting to understand classroom support, teacher turnover, or disciplinary patterns would need to ask the school directly, because the data here does not speak to those questions.
On state testing, Moss Point Escatawpa Upper Elementary participates in Mississippi's MAAP assessments. Math proficiency sits in the low-to-mid thirties across all three grades, with a slight dip from third grade to fifth. ELA results are similar in range, with fourth grade showing the strongest performance. Fifth-grade science stands out as the school's brightest result, with just over half of tested students reaching proficiency. That science figure suggests something is working in the upper grades that the math and ELA patterns do not fully capture. Still, the overall proficiency picture across core subjects is one where most students are not yet meeting grade-level benchmarks. A parent may want to look into what targeted interventions or tutoring the school offers, particularly in math, where the trend across grades moves in the wrong direction.
No multi-year trend data was available, so it is impossible to say from this information whether these results represent improvement, decline, or stability. Participation rates were also missing from the state data set. Because the school serves only elementary grades, there is no graduation rate to report and no high school endpoint to track. This is a building in the middle of a child's academic path, and its job is to move students from early literacy toward the demands of middle school.
Moss Point itself has seen its population decline over recent decades, and the housing market reflects a community with limited means. Typical home values sit below the state benchmark and well below national figures, making this one of the more affordable areas in the region for families looking to buy. Rental data was not available. The city is largely car-dependent, with Interstate 10 running through the northern edge and U.S. Route 90 forming the southeastern boundary. Major employers like Northrop Grumman at Trent Lott International Airport and Omega Protein on the Escatawpa River provide industrial jobs on the outskirts. Downtown Main Street holds local shops, a Mississippi Blues Trail marker, and community events like the River Jamboree and Cruisin' The River City. No public library or transit system was identified in available sources.
The district brief turned up no parent-relevant changes of lasting impact from recent years, so there is little to report on strategic shifts, new programs, or leadership transitions at the district level. This leaves a thin picture of how the district supports this particular school. A family considering Moss Point Escatawpa Upper Elementary is looking at a small, high-poverty upper-elementary school in a resilient but economically constrained river city, with state test results that show a mix of soft spots and a genuinely encouraging science outcome. Whether the school is a fit depends heavily on what happens in the classroom day to day, and the available data points to more questions than answers on that front.
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