The top reported proficiency rate is 71% in Science. The lowest is 55% in Math.
Original Research by School Decision on Beechwood Elementary School
Beechwood Elementary School sits on Highway 27 south of Vicksburg, serving pre-kindergarten through sixth grade as part of the Vicksburg Warren School District. It is a traditional public school, not a charter or magnet. The campus draws from a community where every enrolled student qualifies for free or reduced-price lunch, which marks this as a high-poverty setting. The student body is majority white with a substantial Black minority and a small handful of students from other racial backgrounds. Information on English-learner status and special-education enrollment was not available in the data we received.
The most recent Mississippi Academic Assessment Program results, from the current school year, paint a mixed but generally solid picture for a school serving this demographic. In English language arts, proficiency holds fairly steady across the tested grades. Third and fourth graders land above the halfway mark, fifth graders are the strongest, and sixth graders sit right at the midpoint. The ELA pattern is one of consistency rather than sharp highs or lows.
Math tells a more uneven story. Third and fourth graders perform well, with a clear majority reaching proficiency. Fifth grade math, though, is a weak spot: proficiency drops sharply, with only about a third of tested students clearing the bar. Sixth grade math rebounds to a level where a slim majority are proficient. That fifth-grade dip is the most striking feature of the school's results, and a parent may want to look into this further with the school, whether it reflects a curriculum transition, a particular cohort's challenges, or something else. Science, tested only in fifth grade, is a bright spot, with a strong majority of students reaching proficiency, matching the school's better ELA showing at that grade.
No multi-year trend data was available, so it is not possible to say whether these results are improving, declining, or holding steady over time. Participation rates for the state assessments were also not reported. Because this is an elementary school serving no high school grades, there is no graduation rate to report, and the school does not offer the kinds of career, dual-credit, or AP pathways one would look for at a secondary level.
Vicksburg itself is a small city perched on a high bluff above the Mississippi River, and the surrounding Warren County retains a largely rural, agricultural character outside the city limits. The local economy leans heavily on federal employment, with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers operating three large installations in town. Four riverfront casinos and a tourism economy built around Civil War history, especially the Vicksburg National Military Park, round out the employment base. Downtown has a concentrated strip of restaurants, shops, and galleries, but beyond that core the city is auto-oriented. The school's location on Highway 27 places it outside the downtown core, and families should expect to drive.
Housing in the school's zip code is affordable compared with both state and national benchmarks, with typical home values well below the Mississippi average and far below the national figure. The price-to-income ratio sits below the national level, meaning local incomes stretch further here than in much of the country. That said, the city's population has been in decline, and no major residential developments or growth projects surfaced in our research. The housing market is stable but not expanding.
The Vicksburg Warren School District brief returned little on recent parent-relevant changes. We looked for information on curriculum shifts, bond measures, property-tax changes, or other district-level initiatives and found little of lasting impact in the available results, so we left it out rather than guess. The district's strategic priorities, if any, were not visible in the data provided.
What Beechwood offers families is a community-rooted elementary school with real academic strengths in the early grades and in science, serving a high-need population in an affordable, historically rich but economically modest corner of Mississippi. The fifth-grade math result is the area that most warrants a direct conversation with school staff, and the absence of trend data means families should ask the school directly how performance is moving over time.
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