Summary:
In zip code 35023, there is just one middle school option: Hueytown Middle School, which serves grades 6 through 8 in the Jefferson County district with an enrollment of 755 students.
Hueytown Middle School is a high-needs school facing significant academic challenges. The school ranks in the bottom 20th percentile of all Alabama middle schools, earning a 1-star rating. The most concerning area is mathematics, where proficiency rates are in the single digits for most grade levels. For example, only 4.29% of 6th graders were proficient in math in the 2025-26 school year, compared to 35.22% statewide—a gap of roughly 30 percentage points. This math crisis is persistent across both years of data provided. English Language Arts is a relative strength, with proficiency rates ranging from 33% to 44%, though still below state averages. There is one bright spot: 8th-grade science proficiency nearly doubled from 21.72% in 2024-25 to 41.09% in 2025-26, bringing the school almost in line with the district average of 41.99%.
Context is important for understanding these results. A substantial 72.32% of students qualify for free or reduced lunch, indicating a high-poverty environment. Chronic absenteeism is also a major concern, with 18.3% of students chronically absent—higher than the district average of 16.9% and significantly above the state average of 12.0%. The student-teacher ratio is 16:1, and per-student spending was $7,214 in 2018-19. The combination of high poverty, elevated absenteeism, and low academic performance suggests that families considering this school should be aware of the challenges. However, the improvement in 8th-grade science shows that targeted efforts can yield results, and the school may be implementing new strategies worth investigating further.
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