The top reported proficiency rate is 63% in Science. The lowest is 46% in English language arts.
Original Research by School Decision on Quitman Upper Elementary School
Quitman Upper Elementary School sits on East Franklin Street in the county seat of Clarke County, Mississippi, serving the upper elementary grades in the Quitman School District. The school takes students in grades three through five, the years when children consolidate early reading skills and move into more abstract math and science work. Its enrollment is modest for a three-grade band, and every student qualifies for free or reduced-price lunch, a reflection of the economic conditions in the surrounding community rather than a comment on the school itself. The student body is split between Black and White children in roughly even proportions, with a very small number of students from other racial or ethnic backgrounds. Data on special education enrollment and English learners was not reported, so those subgroup pictures are absent here.
Academically, the most recent Mississippi Academic Assessment Program results paint a school where performance strengthens as students move up through the grades. Third grade is the soft spot. Proficiency in both math and English language arts sits below the midpoint for that grade, meaning a substantial portion of third graders are still working toward grade-level command. By fourth grade, math proficiency rises to a clear majority of students testing proficient or above, and English language arts reaches roughly half. Fifth grade shows the strongest results, with math and science both landing at a solid majority proficient and above, while English language arts dips back closer to the middle of the range. The pattern across grades suggests that the school's instruction may gain traction as students spend more time in the building, though without multi-year trend data, it is hard to say whether this reflects cohort growth or something about the incoming third-grade group. A parent considering this school may want to ask staff how they support the third-grade transition and what drives the upward movement seen in fourth and fifth grade.
No year-over-year trend data was available, so the read here is a single snapshot rather than a trajectory. Participation rates were also missing from the dataset. Science is tested only in fifth grade in Mississippi, which is why no third- or fourth-grade science results appear.
Because this is an elementary school serving grades three through five, there is no graduation rate to report, no AP or career-pathway data, and no dual-credit coursework. Those measures simply do not apply at this grade level. Program offerings beyond what state testing captures were not available in the data provided. Information on discipline practices, staffing levels, attendance patterns, and Title I status was not reported either, so a parent would need to contact the school directly for those details.
Quitman itself is a small rural town and the seat of Clarke County, positioned along the Chickasawhay River with Mississippi Highway 18 running through its center. The downtown follows a traditional Southern courthouse-square layout, anchored by the Clarke County Courthouse, with low-density residential areas radiating outward. The town has experienced steady population decline over several decades, and no major housing developments or commercial growth initiatives surfaced in publicly reported sources. The trajectory is one of contraction rather than expansion. Major employers were not identified in available sources, which limits the picture of the local economy. Walkability and public transit information was not found, and the town's rural character and small footprint suggest limited street life beyond the courthouse square.
Housing in the area is inexpensive by both state and national standards. Home values sit well below the Mississippi benchmark and far below the national one, and recent figures show a modest decline over the past year. The price-to-income ratio is low relative to the national figure, meaning ownership is within reach for local wage earners in a way that is increasingly rare elsewhere. For families already in Clarke County or those whose work ties them to the area, housing costs are unlikely to be a barrier.
The Quitman School District brief returned no parent-relevant changes in the most recent period. No bond referenda, property-tax shifts, curriculum overhauls, or pedagogy changes surfaced in the search, so there is little to report on the district-level direction beyond the school's own results.
What this school appears to offer is a small, community-rooted upper elementary program where academic outcomes improve as children progress through the grades, set in a quiet, affordable town that has been losing population for some time. The third-grade results are the weakest point in the profile, and the absence of staffing, discipline, attendance, and program data leaves gaps a parent would want to fill by visiting or calling. For a family living in or near Quitman, the school is a straightforward local option with encouraging upper-grade results and an economically homogenous peer environment where every child comes from a household meeting the income threshold for subsidized meals.
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