Schools in Kiln, MS

The city of Kiln, Mississippi is served by four public schools in the Hancock School District, which ranks 9th out of 134 districts in the state with a 5-star rating, serving approximately 3,105 students from pre-kindergarten through 12th grade. The district includes two elementary schools, one middle school, and one high school, and the overall quality is unusually strong for a small Mississippi community.

East Hancock Elementary School is the elite performer, ranking 3rd out of 377 elementary schools in Mississippi and earning a 5-star rating. Its test scores are extraordinary — 4th grade math proficiency is 91.8% compared to the 51.5% state average, and 5th grade science hits 93.7%. Even with nearly half of students receiving free/reduced lunch, it has the district's lowest chronic absenteeism rate at 17.9%. Hancock North Central School is the most improved, jumping from 50th to 13th in the state in a single year with a 5-star rating, despite having the highest poverty rate in the district at 69.8% free/reduced lunch. Its low student-teacher ratio of 13.9 and broad-based proficiency gains make it a high-poverty success story.

However, there is a clear performance drop at the secondary level. Hancock Middle School ranks 68th out of 260 and earns 4 stars, but 8th grade math proficiency falls to 60.0% and ELA to 47.5% — far below the elementary schools' results. Hancock High School ranks 32nd out of 224 and is solid, but its graduation rate of 88.7% trails the state's 89.2%, and English II proficiency is its weakest subject at 61.2%. Chronic absenteeism doubles at the secondary level, reaching 34.5% at the high school, which likely explains much of the achievement gap. The district's next challenge is sustaining elementary excellence through middle and high school, especially in English Language Arts.