Summary:
In Vaughan, Mississippi, there is just one public school: Linwood School, a small elementary school serving grades PK-5 with 178 students and part of the Yazoo County School District. This is a high-poverty school, with 98.31% of students eligible for free/reduced lunch, and it has a favorable student-teacher ratio of 13.3 to 1. The school has shown meaningful progress over the past year, improving its state accountability ranking from the 20th percentile to the 39th percentile, and moving from a 1-star to a 2-star rating (out of 5).
Linwood School made broad academic gains in 2025-2026. Compared to the prior year, 3rd grade math proficiency jumped by 18.8 points to 44.7%, 5th grade math rose by 19.8 points to 43.8%, and 5th grade science soared by 30.6 points to 62.6% proficiency. The school now outperforms its district in most tested areas, including 4th grade ELA (46.1% vs. 41.8%), 5th grade math (43.8% vs. 32.8%), and 5th grade ELA (50.0% vs. 48.2%). However, it still trails the state average overall, with a derived average of about 46.5% proficiency across all tested subjects compared to the state's 54.0%. A notable outlier is 4th grade math, which dropped from 75.1% proficiency in 2024-2025 to 38.5% in 2025-2026, suggesting a cohort-related swing rather than a steady trend.
The biggest concern for Linwood School is chronic absenteeism: 33.5% of students are chronically absent, which is higher than the district rate of 31.7% and well above the state rate of 23.9%. This means roughly one in three students misses significant school days, which could threaten the school's recent momentum. Even with its high-poverty population and academic challenges, Linwood School is clearly heading in the right direction, showing strong year-over-year improvement in reading, math, and science. Continued attention to attendance and maintaining consistent test performance across grade levels will be important for sustaining this progress.
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