The top reported proficiency rate is 42% in Science. The lowest is 28% in English language arts.
Original Research by School Decision on Strayhorn High School
Strayhorn High School sits in Sarah, Mississippi, a small unincorporated community in Tate County along Mississippi Highway 3. Sarah is rural and agricultural, with farmland and scattered residences spread along the highway, no downtown, no commercial corridor, and minimal civic infrastructure beyond a post office. The nearest Amtrak stop is a considerable drive south in Marks. Publicly reported descriptions paint a quiet, close-knit place where residents know one another, shaped by the surrounding farmland and a slow pace of life. The school is part of the Tate County School District.
Strayhorn serves grades seven through twelve with a modest enrollment spread fairly evenly across those grades. The student body is predominantly white, with a meaningful Black enrollment and a smaller Hispanic presence. A substantial majority of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch. Data on students with individualized education programs and English learners was not reported.
On state assessments through the Mississippi Academic Assessment Program, the most recent results cover only the middle grades. Seventh-grade math proficiency sits at roughly half of tested students reaching the proficient bar, a middling result. That figure drops by eighth grade, where fewer than a third of students reached proficiency. In English language arts, both seventh and eighth grades show proficiency rates below a third of tested students. Eighth-grade science landed higher, with close to four in ten students demonstrating proficiency. Participation rates for these assessments were not reported. These results indicate that students at Strayhorn are performing below state expectations in core subjects, particularly in English language arts and eighth-grade mathematics. A parent considering this school may want to look into how the school supports literacy and math instruction across the middle grades, and what intervention structures are in place.
Several categories of data that would help round out the picture were absent. No high-school-level assessment results, ACT scores, graduation rate, or college- and career-readiness indicators appeared in the available data. Because the school serves through twelfth grade, these gaps point to missing reporting. The grade band is one where such measures should exist. No information on advanced coursework, dual credit, career and technical programs, or extracurricular offerings was available. Discipline, attendance, and staffing data were also absent. Without these, it is hard to assess the full academic pathway the school offers or the climate students experience day to day. A family would need to go directly to the school for those answers.
The Tate County School District brief turned up little on recent curriculum changes, facility investments, or policy shifts that would shape a family's decision, so there is nothing to relay beyond the district's basic profile.
Housing in the Sarah zip code is affordable by national standards, with typical home values sitting well below the national benchmark though somewhat above the Mississippi state average. The price-to-income ratio suggests that homeownership remains within reach for working families earning near the area median. Rental data was not available. The local housing market has seen modest recent appreciation, consistent with a stable rural area rather than one experiencing rapid growth. No information on new development or growth pressures in Sarah was found.
For a family weighing Strayhorn, the core tradeoff is familiar to rural school choices: a small, community-rooted setting in an agricultural area, with class sizes that likely allow for personal attention, set against state assessment results that indicate academic struggles in key subjects. The missing data on graduation, advanced coursework, and school climate means a parent would need to ask the school and district directly before making a full judgment.
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