The top reported proficiency rate is 56% in Math. The lowest is 28% in Science.
Original Research by School Decision on Richton Elementary School
Richton Elementary School sits on Elm Avenue in the small Perry County town of Richton, part of the Hattiesburg metro area but firmly rural in character. The town has seen its population decline over recent census cycles, with no major housing developments or growth projects on the horizon. Publicly reported sources note that the U.S. Department of Energy once selected Richton as a possible site for Strategic Petroleum Reserve expansion, but that project's status remains unclear, and beyond the school district itself, major employers are not well documented. The town hall sits on Dogwood Avenue, and civic and school buildings sit close together within a compact footprint. For a parent, this is a place where the school functions as a community anchor in a town with limited commercial activity.
The school serves kindergarten through sixth grade, with an enrollment that is modest in size and fairly evenly distributed across grade levels. The student body is predominantly white, with a smaller share of Black students and a small number of students identifying as two or more races. A substantial majority of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, which reflects the economic profile of the surrounding community. Data on English learners and special-education enrollment was not available, so those pieces of the picture are left out rather than guessed.
On Mississippi's MAAP assessments, the most recent results paint a mixed academic picture. In math, proficiency rises sharply as students move up through the grades. Third-grade math proficiency is below what most parents would hope to see, and fifth grade sits in a similar range. Fourth grade is stronger, with roughly half of tested students reaching proficiency. The standout is sixth grade, where math proficiency is remarkably high, with nearly all tested students scoring proficient or above. This is a pattern worth noting: the school appears to be doing strong work with older elementary students in math, while the earlier grades have more ground to cover.
English language arts results are more consistent across grades but generally lower. Third-grade ELA proficiency is the weakest point in the school's results. Fourth grade shows improvement, with nearly half of students proficient. Fifth and sixth grades settle back into a range where roughly a third to slightly more than a third of students meet the proficiency bar. Science is tested only in fifth grade here, and proficiency is low. A parent looking at these numbers may want to ask the school how it supports early literacy and what interventions are in place for students who are not yet reading on grade level.
The Richton School District as a whole earned a B rating on the Mississippi Succeeds Report Card for the most recent school year, with both the elementary and high school carrying that same B. Publicly reported data also indicates the district's math proficiency runs above the state average and that its student-teacher ratio is lower than the state norm, which suggests smaller classes than many Mississippi families encounter. Those are genuine strengths that frame the elementary school's results in a more favorable light than the grade-level numbers alone might suggest.
Housing in the 39476 zip code is affordable relative to both state and national benchmarks. Typical home values sit below the Mississippi state benchmark and well below the national figure, and the price-to-income ratio for the area is below the national level. Rent data was not available. For families considering a move, the housing market here is accessible, though the town's population decline and limited commercial activity are part of the trade-off.
No data was available on discipline practices, course access, staffing details, attendance, or specific program offerings such as gifted, arts, or extracurricular programming. Without that information, it is hard to say what enrichment opportunities exist beyond the core curriculum. A parent would do well to ask the school directly about what is offered beyond the tested subjects.
What Richton Elementary offers is a small, community-rooted setting with strong upper-grade math results and a district-level academic profile that outperforms state averages in key areas. The early-grade proficiency numbers, particularly in reading and third-grade math, are the soft spots, and they are worth a direct conversation with school staff. For a family drawn to a small town where the school is a central institution, this is a setting where the later elementary years look academically strong and the community ties are close, even as the town around it navigates a period of population decline.
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