The top reported proficiency rate is 43% in Science. The lowest is 24% in Math.
Original Research by School Decision on Quitman County Middle School
Quitman County Middle School sits in Marks, the county seat of Quitman County, in the Mississippi Delta. It serves grades five through eight as part of the Quitman County School District, the public system covering the area. A private school, Delta Academy, also operates in Marks, giving families a choice between public and private options within the same small town.
Marks itself is a small, predominantly Black community with a deep historical identity. It was named after Leopold Marks, a German Jewish immigrant who became the county's first state legislator and helped bring the railroad through. The town holds a place in civil rights history as the starting point of the Marks Mule Train, connected to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s Poor People's Campaign. A cultural trail commemorating that history is under development. The downtown was designated a National Register Historic District, a move tied to ongoing restoration of the county courthouse and a Rosenwald School. An Amtrak station brings the City of New Orleans train through town. Publicly reported data describes steady population decline, and no major new housing developments were identified. The median household income is low and the poverty rate is high relative to typical American communities.
The school's enrollment is small, consistent with a rural Delta middle school. Nearly all students are Black, and every student qualifies for free or reduced-price lunch. The data did not include counts for students with individualized education programs or English learners, so those population sizes are not visible here. Information on staffing, course access, discipline, attendance, and Title I status was also not available in the provided data.
On state assessments, the Mississippi Academic Assessment Program, results vary across grades and subjects in ways worth understanding. In math, the earlier grades show a relatively small share of students reaching proficiency. Proficiency climbs notably by seventh grade, then settles back somewhat in eighth. ELA results hold fairly steady across all four grades at a moderate level, without a sharp peak or dip in any single grade. Science, tested in fifth and eighth grades, shows the school's strongest results. In eighth grade science, a slim majority of tested students reached proficiency, the highest single result across all grades and subjects reported here. Fifth grade science also landed above the school's typical math and ELA marks.
No multi-year trend data was available, so it is not possible to say from the provided information whether these results represent improvement, decline, or stability over time. Participation rates were also missing from the dataset.
Because this is a middle school serving grades five through eight, there is no graduation rate to report. That metric applies to high schools and does not exist for this grade band.
The parent district, Quitman County School District, showed no publicly reported parent-relevant changes in the search window. The district brief found no evidence of recent curriculum shifts, referendums, property tax changes, or other lasting developments that would alter a family's decision context. This absence means families considering the school are working from its current profile rather than any documented recent transition.
What the picture amounts to is a small, rural, predominantly Black middle school in a historically rich but economically pressed Delta town, where science is the relative bright spot in state testing and where math and ELA results leave a substantial portion of students below the proficiency bar. A parent weighing this school may want to ask about instructional support in the earlier math grades, what drives the seventh-grade uptick, and how the district plans to sustain the stronger science results into other subjects. The data gaps on staffing, programs, and special populations also mean a visit or direct conversation with the school would help fill in what the numbers here do not show.
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