Summary:
Magnolia, Mississippi, is home to two middle-level schools in the South Pike School District — South Pike Junior High (grades 7–8, 241 students) and Eva Gordon Upper Elementary School (grades 4–6, 236 students) — both serving very high-poverty populations with nearly all students eligible for free/reduced lunch.
South Pike Junior High is in a concerning downward spiral. Its state ranking fell from the 50th percentile (3 stars) in 2023–2024 to the 13th percentile (1 star) in 2025–2026. It now lags the state average in every tested subject, with the biggest gap in 8th grade science (34% proficient vs. 57.8% statewide). Chronic absenteeism is high at 21.7%, above the district rate of 20.1%. By contrast, Eva Gordon Upper Elementary School has a much brighter profile. Its chronic absenteeism is just 12.7% — well below both the district and state averages. Academically, it outperforms South Pike overall, with an average MAAP proficiency of 35.7% compared to 30.0% at the junior high. Eva Gordon even matches the state average in 6th grade math, with 51.1% proficient.
That said, Eva Gordon has a glaring weakness in elementary math. Only 18.8% of 5th graders were proficient in math in 2025–2026, a 30.8-point gap behind the state, and 4th grade math is also far below average. This suggests a chronic math pipeline issue that may affect future grades. Meanwhile, South Pike’s scores exactly match the district averages, meaning it is the only tested school in its grade span, so there is no internal benchmark. Both schools have similar student-teacher ratios (15.1 vs. 14.5), so staffing is not the main difference. The key takeaway is that Eva Gordon shows high-poverty students can achieve strong attendance and grade-level success, while South Pike needs urgent attention to reverse its declining state standing and address chronic absenteeism and subject-level proficiency gaps.
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