Summary:
There is one middle school in Houston, Mississippi: Houston Middle School, which serves grades 6–8 and enrolls 352 students within the Chickasaw County School District. The school offers a favorable student–teacher ratio of 11.6:1, but serves a high-need population, with roughly 78% of students eligible for free/reduced-price lunch. Academically, math is the clear strength: in 2025–2026, 6th-grade math proficiency reached 58.3% and 7th-grade math hit 61.0%, both above the state averages of 52.7% and 57.7%. The school also posts strong 6th-grade ELA growth, improving from 33.9% to 47.8% in one year, nearly matching the state.
English Language Arts remains the biggest area of concern, especially in the upper grades. In 2025–2026, 7th-grade ELA proficiency was 27.1% and 8th-grade ELA was 28.6%, compared to statewide rates of 36.7% and 40.9% respectively. Even more troubling is 8th-grade science, which plummeted from 47.9% to 35.7% while the state average climbed to 57.8%, widening the gap to over 22 points. By contrast, the school matches or exceeds its district in 7th-grade math (61.0% vs. 56.4%) but lags slightly in ELA and science. The overall pattern suggests strong performance in 6th and 7th grade math that does not carry through to 8th grade, where proficiency drops sharply across all subjects.
The school's statewide ranking has declined steadily, from 117th (56th percentile) in 2023–2024 to 140th (46th percentile) in 2025–2026, and its star rating fell from 3 stars to 2 stars. Chronic absenteeism is also a contributing concern, with 28.5% of students chronically absent compared to 23.6% for the district and 23.9% statewide. While the school has genuine strengths in math and a low student–teacher ratio, the combination of declining 8th-grade results, persistent upper-grade ELA gaps, and high absenteeism will likely need to be addressed to reverse the downward trend in its overall state standing.
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