Coahoma County Junior High School

Coahoma County Junior High School is a small public middle school in Clarksdale, Mississippi, serving 172 students in grades 7 and 8 as part of the Coahoma County School District, which holds a 1-star rating. The school itself also received a 1-star rating for 2025–2026, ranking 216th out of 260 Mississippi middle schools (17th percentile), placing it in the bottom fifth statewide.

Despite the low ranking, the school offers some advantages. Its student-teacher ratio of 14.3 to 1 is notably better than nearby W.A. Higgins Academy Of Arts/International Studies (23.6 to 1) and Oakhurst Intermediate School (16.1 to 1), both part of the Clarksdale Municipal School District. Nearly all students (95.93%) qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, a rate slightly lower than Higgins (97.03%) and Oakhurst (96.45%), which makes comparisons across these schools relatively fair. Academically, Coahoma is essentially tied with Higgins overall, but it posts a meaningful edge in 8th grade: 34.1% proficient in math versus 26.1% at Higgins, and 21.1% versus 17.0% in English Language Arts. In 7th grade, Higgins is slightly ahead in both subjects.

Math stands out as a relative strength at Coahoma, with 47.2% of 7th graders proficient compared to 22.8% in ELA. Science is the biggest concern — only 35.3% of 8th graders are proficient, a 22.5-point gap from the state average of 57.8%, a challenge shared by W.A. Higgins Academy Of Arts/International Studies. Overall, proficiency trails state averages by roughly 10 to 22 points in every subject. Coahoma has no reported chronic absenteeism data, while Higgins reports a high 44.2% rate (state average is 23.9%), so attendance may be an important factor to watch. With only one year of ranking data available, these results are best viewed as a single snapshot rather than a long-term trend.