Summary:
Long Beach, Mississippi, is served by two middle-level schools in the Long Beach School District—Harper McCaughan Elementary (grades 4–6, enrollment 622) and Long Beach Middle School (grades 7–8, enrollment 475)—covering the full 4–8 grade span in this small coastal city.
If you are comparing the two, Harper McCaughan Elementary is a quiet powerhouse. It has no state ranking, but its overall average proficiency (69.5%) is higher than Long Beach Middle School (67.7%). It leads in English Language Arts (61.6% vs. 57.2%) and Mathematics (74.6% vs. 72.9%), while the two are nearly tied in Science (77.5% vs. 78.3%). Harper also has a much better student-teacher ratio (13.8 vs. 17.2). The district’s flagship for external recognition, however, is Long Beach Middle School, which has earned a 5-star rating three years in a row and consistently ranks in the top 5% of Mississippi middle schools (96th, 97th, and 95th percentiles). Both schools outperform state averages by wide margins in nearly every grade and subject—often by 15 to 27 points—despite serving a majority of students eligible for free/reduced lunch (about 59% at Harper, 58.5% at Long Beach Middle).
The biggest concern is chronic absenteeism: roughly one in five students at each school is chronically absent, slightly below the state average but still high enough to matter. English Language Arts is the relative weak spot, particularly at Long Beach Middle School, where 7th grade ELA dropped to just 48.1% in 2025–2026. That same school saw noticeable year-over-year declines in 7th grade ELA (−5.7 points), 8th grade ELA (−8.0), and 7th grade math (−4.3), while Harper McCaughan Elementary mostly improved. The single highest test score in the dataset is Harper’s 6th grade math (79.6%), and the lowest is Long Beach Middle’s 7th grade ELA (48.1%). In short, these are strong schools with math and science as clear strengths; the district’s next big opportunity is boosting middle-school literacy and reducing absenteeism.
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