Summary:
Zip code 35752 is served by a single school, Hollywood Elementary School, a small public PK-8 school in the Jackson County district with 184 students and a 14.7:1 student-teacher ratio.
As the only school in the area, Hollywood Elementary serves as both the elementary and middle school for the community. The school’s academic performance is highly inconsistent across grade levels and subjects. In English, 3rd and 4th graders perform near state averages, but 5th and 6th graders fall significantly behind. Math is the biggest concern, with proficiency rates of just 7.69% in 5th grade and 0% in 6th grade, compared to state averages of 39% and 35%. However, there are bright spots: 3rd-grade math improved from 28.57% to 44.44% year-over-year, and 7th-grade math jumped from 26.32% to 45.45%. Science scores in 4th and 8th grades also trail state averages. The school’s state ranking has slipped from the 31st percentile to the 24th percentile in the most recent year.
About 56% of students qualify for free or reduced lunch, indicating a high-poverty population, yet the school’s chronic absenteeism rate of 10.8% is actually better than both the district (12.7%) and state (12.0%) averages. Per-student spending is $12,708. The data reveals a "U-shaped" performance pattern: younger students do relatively well, performance drops sharply in 5th and 6th grades, then recovers somewhat in 7th and 8th grades. This suggests the middle-grade transition is a particular challenge. The 0% proficiency in 6th-grade math is a critical red flag that warrants immediate attention. While the school shows pockets of success and a dedicated student body that attends regularly, the inconsistent results across grades point to a lack of a cohesive school-wide instructional strategy, with outcomes likely varying by teacher or grade-level team.
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