Leland School District

The Leland School District is a small, high-poverty district in Mississippi serving 671 students across three schools: Edna M Scott Elementary School (grades 1-5), Leland School Park (grades 6-8), and Leland High School (grades 9-12). The district ranks in the 40th percentile statewide, and every school serves a student population with near-universal economic disadvantage.

Leland School Park is the district's academic bright spot. Its Algebra I End-of-Course proficiency rate reached 93.3% this year, far above the state average of 66%, following a perfect 100% score the prior year. Eighth-grade math also improved dramatically to 54%, edging past the state average. Leland High School is the most improved school, jumping from the 16th to the 46th percentile in a single year, with Biology proficiency at a strong 80% and English II scores climbing from 27.6% to 41.5%. However, the high school's graduation rate (84.8%) trails the state, and its chronic absenteeism rate of 27.2% is the highest in the district. Edna M Scott Elementary School shows promise in 3rd grade ELA (55.5% vs. 48.5% statewide) but experienced sharp declines in 5th grade math and science, which dropped by 21 and 35 percentage points respectively from the prior year.

The district's biggest challenge is English Language Arts, with nearly all grade levels below state averages. High school Algebra I also lags notably behind the middle school's exceptional results, suggesting an uneven math pathway. Chronic absenteeism is inverted by school level, with the middle school at a very low 10.3% but the high school above the state average. Despite high poverty across the board, the district's standout results in Algebra I, Biology, and early literacy show that excellence is achievable and worth replicating across other subjects.