High Schools in Western Line Schools

The Western Line Schools district in Mississippi includes two small combined middle/high schools—O’Bannon High School in Greenville and Riverside High School in Avon—both serving grades 7 through 12 in a rural, high-poverty area where nearly every student qualifies for free or reduced lunch.

In the most recent 2025–2026 data, O’Bannon High School is clearly the stronger school. It ranks 143rd in the state (36th percentile) compared to Riverside High School at 183rd (18th percentile). O’Bannon also has a higher graduation rate (76.2% vs. 72.9%), lower chronic absenteeism (28.3% vs. 39.9%), and leads Riverside in 7 of 8 subject areas on the 2025–2026 MAAP tests. The biggest gap is in Algebra I, where 77.4% of O’Bannon students are proficient versus just 34.1% at Riverside—a 43-point difference. O’Bannon also showed dramatic improvement in 8th-grade math and science, with proficiency jumping by 29 and 26 points respectively. Riverside, meanwhile, suffered steep declines in Algebra I, English II, and Biology, causing its state ranking to collapse from 56th (4 stars) in 2024–2025 to 183rd (1 star) one year later.

The most urgent concern for both schools is chronic absenteeism. Nearly 4 in 10 Riverside students are chronically absent, and O’Bannon’s rate of 28.3% is still above the state average of 23.9%. Graduation rates are also well below the state’s 89.2%, with both schools hovering in the low-to-mid 70s. Despite these struggles, there are bright spots: Riverside outperformed O’Bannon in Biology (52.5% vs. 47.3%), and O’Bannon’s Algebra I results are above the state average. Interestingly, Riverside has a better student-to-teacher ratio (13.9:1 vs. 17.5:1) yet worse outcomes, suggesting that attendance and instructional quality matter more than staffing alone. For parents, this district offers two small schools with significant economic challenges; O’Bannon is currently the more stable and higher-performing choice, while Riverside shows the potential for excellence but remains highly inconsistent from year to year.