Summary:
The Aberdeen School District contains a single elementary school, Aberdeen Elementary, which serves grades K–4 and enrolls 346 students in Aberdeen, Mississippi. The school stands out immediately for its exceptionally high economic need, with 99.13% of students receiving free or reduced lunch, yet it has posted steady gains in its state ranking, climbing from the 13th percentile in 2023–2024 to the 23rd percentile in 2024–2025, and then to the 36th percentile in 2025–2026—an improvement of 95 positions over two years.
Academically, the most encouraging trend is in English Language Arts, where 3rd grade proficiency jumped from 27.8% to 40.3% and 4th grade proficiency rose from 33.3% to 42.6% between 2024–2025 and 2025–2026. These gains have substantially narrowed the gap with state averages, moving from more than 20 points behind to roughly 8–10 points behind. In mathematics, 3rd grade also improved slightly, from 42.7% to 45.5%, and now sits just 3.3 points below the state average. The school also posts a chronic absenteeism rate of 16.4%, which is notably better than the district's 21.6% and the state's 23.9%, suggesting that attendance is a relative strength despite the high-poverty context. With a student-teacher ratio of 17.4:1, class sizes are moderate.
The clear outlier in an otherwise positive picture is 4th grade mathematics, which declined sharply from 46.6% to 35.2%, a drop of 11.4 percentage points. This subject, which was the school's strongest in the prior year, is now its weakest, sitting 16.3 points below the state average while the gaps in every other subject have narrowed. Given that Aberdeen Elementary is the district's only elementary school, there are no local peer comparisons to draw from, but the combination of rising state percentile rankings, strong ELA growth, and lower-than-average chronic absenteeism suggests the school is on a positive trajectory. Continued attention to 4th grade math will be critical to sustaining that momentum.
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