High Schools in Cleveland School District

Cleveland Central High School is the sole high school in the Cleveland School District, serving grades 9–12 in Cleveland, Mississippi, with an enrollment of 799 students. Because it is the only high school in the district, all district-level high school indicators are identical to the school’s. Cleveland Central High School serves an almost universally low-income population, with 99.87% of students eligible for free or reduced-price lunch. The school has a moderate student-teacher ratio of 17.7, but its challenges are significant: the graduation rate is 78.2% (well below the state’s 89.2%), and chronic absenteeism is a major red flag at 38.7% — more than 1 in 3 students are chronically absent, compared to 23.9% statewide.

Academically, Cleveland Central High School trails the state in every tested subject and year. In the 2025-2026 school year, Algebra I proficiency was just 30.8% versus the state’s 66.0%, a 35.2-point gap; English II proficiency was 33.5% (state: 49.3%), and Biology was 43.2% (state: 63.1%). The school’s performance has been volatile: after improving from the 17th percentile in 2023-2024 to the 28th percentile in 2024-2025, it plummeted to the 9th percentile in 2025-2026, earning a 0-star rating and ranking 203rd out of 224 Mississippi high schools. The sharpest decline came in Algebra I, which dropped 15.1 percentage points in just one year.

While the Cleveland School District is ranked 89th out of 134 districts (34th percentile, 2 stars), the district’s overall rating appears to be supported by other schools, as Cleveland Central High School itself is clearly among the lowest-performing high schools in the state. The combination of extreme economic disadvantage, high chronic absenteeism, low graduation rates, and poor academic outcomes points to a school in need of urgent, targeted interventions. Attendance supports, intensive math instruction, and expanded counseling and tutoring services would all be critical to reversing the downward trend. For parents considering this school, the data suggests that while the community is close-knit and the student-teacher ratio is not extreme, the school faces deep systemic challenges that currently limit student success.