Burnsville Elementary, Burnsville MS

Original Research by School Decision on Burnsville Elementary

Burnsville Elementary sits at a highway crossroads in one of Mississippi's most rural corners. The town of Burnsville sits where US Route 72 meets a north-south state highway in Tishomingo County, with the Tennessee-Tombigbee Waterway along its eastern edge and Bay Springs Lake a short drive south. The county seat, Iuka, is about eight miles southeast on US 72, and Corinth lies roughly fourteen miles to the northwest. Publicly reported sources describe Burnsville as an entirely rural, low-density community whose population has been declining for two decades, with no major housing developments or growth projects on the horizon. The built environment is oriented around its highway corridors, and available sources note no dedicated pedestrian infrastructure or walkable commercial district. For a family considering this school, that means an auto-dependent small-town setting where the school itself functions as a primary civic anchor alongside City Hall and the public library.

The school serves kindergarten through eighth grade and belongs to the Tishomingo County School District. Its enrollment is moderate for a K-8 campus serving a single small town. Three quarters of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, reflecting the economic conditions of the surrounding community. The student body is almost entirely white, with a very small number of Hispanic students and students identified as two or more races. The school does not report data for English learners or students with individualized education programs, so families needing information about special education services or language support will want to ask the school directly.

State assessment results from the most recent year paint a mixed and uneven picture across grade levels. In English language arts, Burnsville's early grades are a genuine strength. Third and fourth graders show proficiency rates that sit well above typical state averages, and sixth and seventh grades also perform respectably. The weak spot is fifth grade, where ELA proficiency drops sharply, and eighth grade, where results again fall to a lower tier. The same general pattern appears in math. Third and fourth grades land in a solid range, while fifth-grade math proficiency is very low, with only a small fraction of tested students reaching proficiency. That fifth-grade dip is the most striking soft spot in the school's results and is worth a parent's attention. A parent may want to look into this further with the school, particularly whether a specific cohort, staffing change, or curricular transition played a role. The brightest result comes in seventh-grade math, where a large majority of students tested proficient, suggesting that the school can produce strong outcomes when conditions align. Eighth-grade math and science settle into a middling range, with science proficiency at a level that is neither a clear strength nor a particular concern.

No multi-year trend data was available, so it is not possible to tell whether the fifth-grade dip is a one-year event or a recurring pattern. That absence of longitudinal data is itself a limitation worth naming. We looked for the district's strategic priorities but found little in publicly reported sources, so we left that out rather than guess. No neighbor comparison or program-specific data was provided for this school.

Housing in Burnsville is affordable by any standard benchmark. The typical home value sits well below the Mississippi state median and far below the national figure, and the price-to-income ratio is low. This makes homeownership relatively accessible for families drawn to the area, though the declining population and absence of new development suggest limited housing turnover and few new options coming online.

What Burnsville Elementary offers is a small, community-rooted K-8 pathway in a quiet rural setting with some genuinely strong early-grade results and a standout middle-grade math year. The fifth-grade results are the clearest question mark. For a family already tied to this community, the school appears to be doing solid work in stretches, with room to examine consistency across the grade span.

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Academic performance

How students perform on state tests, by grade, set against the district.

Math

Grade 346%

School 46% · District 48% · ▼ 2 pts below district

▼ 4 pts below state median

Grade 448%

School 48% · District 59% · ▼ 11 pts below district

▼ 3 pts below state median

Grade 512%

School 12% · District 36% · ▼ 24 pts below district

▼ 30 pts below state median

Grade 637%

School 37% · District 38% · ▼ 1 pts below district

▼ 14 pts below state median

Grade 770%

School 70% · District 57% · ▲ 13 pts above district

▲ 18 pts above state median

Grade 840%

School 40% · District 51% · ▼ 11 pts below district

▼ 4 pts below state median

English language arts

Grade 358%

School 58% · District 51% · ▲ 6 pts above district

▲ 10 pts above state median

Grade 468%

School 68% · District 65% · ▲ 3 pts above district

▲ 19 pts above state median

Grade 535%

School 35% · District 55% · ▼ 20 pts below district

▼ 16 pts below state median

Grade 665%

School 65% · District 56% · ▲ 9 pts above district

▲ 23 pts above state median

Grade 760%

School 60% · District 50% · ▲ 10 pts above district

▲ 28 pts above state median

Grade 843%

School 43% · District 47% · ▼ 4 pts below district

▲ 6 pts above state median

Science

Grade 532%

School 32% · District 57% · ▼ 24 pts below district

▼ 32 pts below state median

Grade 853%

School 53% · District 60% · ▼ 6 pts below district

even with state median

This schoolTISHOMINGO CO SP MUN SCH DIST, same grade

Graduation rate (ACGR) reflects the federally published Adjusted Cohort Graduation Rate for the most recent year available. We refresh this data annually at the close of each academic year in June. The federal source publishes a banded rate (for example, "90-94%") instead of an exact number for cohorts small enough to risk identifying individual students. The state distribution chart, where shown, plots every school in the state with a published rate or band; schools whose rate is federally suppressed are excluded. Where the federal source publishes a band rather than an exact rate, the school is placed within its band using a stable, ID-derived offset, so its position is consistent across visits.