Summary:
Zip code 36522 is home to a single elementary school, McDavidJones Elementary School, which serves students from Pre-Kindergarten through 5th grade within the Mobile County school district, enrolling 826 students in a predominantly low-income area where about two-thirds of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch.
For parents, the most important takeaway is that McDavidJones has a clear academic strength in English Language Arts (ELA). In the 2025-2026 school year, the school outperformed both district and state averages in every tested grade for reading and writing, with 5th-grade ELA proficiency reaching 72.97%—more than 3 points above the state average. However, mathematics tells a different story. While 3rd-grade math (46.3% proficiency) slightly exceeds the state average, 4th-grade math (29.17%) falls nearly 13 points below the state average, and 5th-grade math saw a dramatic decline from 52% to 35.14% in just one year. Science proficiency in 4th grade (45.83%) is essentially on par with the district but below the state. The school's overall state ranking has slipped over three years, from 305th (55th percentile) to 359th (48th percentile), and its star rating dropped from 3 to 2 stars.
Beyond test scores, parents should note that chronic absenteeism (13.2%) is slightly higher than both district and state averages, and the student-teacher ratio of 18.7 is relatively high, which could limit individualized attention. Per-student spending is $9,439, though this figure is from 2018-2019. The school's ability to achieve above-average ELA results despite economic challenges and higher absenteeism suggests effective teaching in literacy, but the sharp decline in 5th-grade math and the overall downward trajectory in rankings are concerns worth investigating. The mixed performance—strong in English, weak in upper-grade math—points to a potential imbalance in instructional focus that parents may want to discuss with school leadership.
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