Clara Elementary School, Waynesboro MS

Original Research by School Decision on Clara Elementary School

Clara Elementary School sits along Clara School Road just outside Waynesboro, the county seat of Wayne County in southeastern Mississippi. It is part of the Wayne County School District and serves students from pre-kindergarten through eighth grade, making it a combined elementary and middle school under one roof. The enrollment is modest for a school covering that many grades, and the student body is predominantly white, with smaller numbers of Black, multiracial, American Indian, and Hispanic students. Every student at Clara qualifies for free or reduced-price lunch, which reflects the broader economic conditions in the surrounding area.

Waynesboro itself is a small, low-density city that developed as an agricultural and trade hub and later experienced an oil-driven boom in the mid-twentieth century. Publicly reported sources note that the population has been declining over recent decades. The city sits along the Chickasawhay River roughly an hour southeast of Hattiesburg, with U.S. Route 45 and Mississippi Highway 63 running through the area. The built environment is auto-oriented, centered on a traditional courthouse square with surrounding residential streets. Publicly reported information did not identify specific major employers, though government and local commerce likely play a role. The housing market here is quite affordable relative to both state and national benchmarks, with typical home values well below the statewide figure and far below the national one. Recent appreciation has been strong on a percentage basis, but the absolute price level remains low. For a family looking to buy, the price-to-income ratio suggests that homeownership is within reach for many local households, especially compared with most of the country.

On state assessments, Clara's results tell a mixed but generally solid story. In mathematics, proficiency rates across the tested grades are mostly in a healthy range, with third and fourth grades performing well and seventh grade standing out as particularly strong. Eighth grade math is the weakest point, with fewer than half of tested students reaching proficiency, and a parent may want to look into this further with the school to understand what is driving the drop-off in the upper middle grades. English language arts results follow a similar pattern: third and fifth grades perform respectably, but sixth grade dips noticeably, and eighth grade again lands at roughly the halfway mark. Science results are a bright spot, with fifth grade proficiency notably high and eighth grade science in a solid range. Participation rates were not reported in the data, so it is not possible to assess whether testing coverage was complete.

The school does not serve high school grades, so there is no graduation rate to report, and that gap reflects the grade band rather than a missing measure. Data on English learner and special education enrollment was not available, and no information on program offerings, course access, staffing, discipline, attendance, or Title I status was provided. The district brief turned up little on recent strategic changes or initiatives, so there is nothing to relay on that front. A family considering Clara would be looking at a small, community-rooted school in an affordable rural county seat, with academic performance that is respectable in most grades but with clear soft spots in the later middle school years that warrant attention.

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Academic performance

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

Math

Grade 364%

School 64% · District 41% · ▲ 23 pts above district

▲ 14 pts above state median

Grade 466%

School 66% · District 53% · ▲ 13 pts above district

▲ 15 pts above state median

Grade 558%

School 58% · District 27% · ▲ 31 pts above district

▲ 16 pts above state median

Grade 658%

School 58% · District 28% · ▲ 30 pts above district

▲ 7 pts above state median

Grade 784%

School 84% · District 53% · ▲ 31 pts above district

▲ 32 pts above state median

Grade 849%

School 49% · District 37% · ▲ 12 pts above district

▲ 5 pts above state median

English language arts

Grade 367%

School 67% · District 47% · ▲ 20 pts above district

▲ 19 pts above state median

Grade 452%

School 52% · District 39% · ▲ 13 pts above district

▲ 3 pts above state median

Grade 563%

School 63% · District 41% · ▲ 22 pts above district

▲ 12 pts above state median

Grade 640%

School 40% · District 31% · ▲ 9 pts above district

▼ 2 pts below state median

Grade 760%

School 60% · District 34% · ▲ 25 pts above district

▲ 28 pts above state median

Grade 849%

School 49% · District 40% · ▲ 10 pts above district

▲ 13 pts above state median

Science

Grade 579%

School 79% · District 46% · ▲ 33 pts above district

▲ 14 pts above state median

Grade 859%

School 59% · District 50% · ▲ 8 pts above district

▲ 6 pts above state median

This schoolWAYNE CO SCHOOL 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.