Summary:
Zip code 35651 is home to just one school, Mount Hope Elementary, a small, rural PK-6 school in the Lawrence County district with 117 students and a high rate of economic need.
For parents, the most striking thing about Mount Hope is its exceptional attendance: only 0.8% of students are chronically absent, compared to 12% statewide. This near-perfect attendance suggests a welcoming, supportive environment. Academically, the school shows real strengths in early literacy and upper-grade math. In 3rd grade English, 86.67% of students are proficient, far exceeding the state average of 64.75%. In 6th grade math, proficiency is 53.85%, more than double the district average. The student-teacher ratio is a favorable 13:1, which likely helps teachers provide individual attention. However, performance is uneven. Science is a clear weakness, with only 27.78% of 4th graders proficient versus a 50.23% state average. Also, because the school is so small, test scores can swing dramatically from year to year—for example, 3rd grade math jumped from 33% to 76% proficiency between years—so a single cohort can skew results.
Despite a high poverty rate (55.56% free/reduced lunch) and a district ranked in the bottom third of Alabama, Mount Hope posts competitive scores in core subjects, suggesting effective teaching. The school's state ranking has fluctuated between the 46th and 62nd percentile over three years, reflecting this variability. Per-student spending is relatively high at $11,107, likely due to the costs of running a small rural school. The key takeaway for parents is that Mount Hope offers a tight-knit, high-attendance environment with strong pockets of academic success, but families should be aware of the science gap and the inherent volatility of test scores at such a small school.
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