Summary
Natchez High School serves 606 students in grades 9–12 in Natchez, Mississippi, and is one of two public high schools in the Natchez-Adams School District. The school currently ranks 219th out of 224 high schools statewide, placing it in the bottom 2% of Mississippi schools with a 0-star rating. This is a stark contrast to its same-district counterpart, Natchez Early College @ County-Lin, which ranks 100th in the state with a 3-star rating. Both schools serve an almost exclusively low-income population, with 100% of students eligible for free/reduced lunch, yet their outcomes are dramatically different.
Academically, Natchez High School's test scores are far below both district and state averages. On the 2025–2026 MAAP exams, only 29% of students passed Algebra I (versus 66% statewide), 26.6% passed English II (versus 49.3% statewide), and 25.1% passed Biology (versus 63.1% statewide). U.S. History is a relative strength, with 48.6% proficiency versus the state's 69.7%. The graduation rate is 86.2%, below the state average of 89.2%, and chronic absenteeism is a major concern, with 29.2% of students missing significant school — about 50% higher than the district average. Interestingly, the school has a favorable student–teacher ratio of 12.1 to 1, much better than Natchez Early College's 20.4 to 1, yet outcomes remain weak, suggesting class size alone isn't the answer.
This is a school that has struggled for a decade, ranking in the bottom 5–10% of Mississippi high schools every year since 2015–2016. While poverty is universal at both schools, the early college's selective, application-based model likely attracts a different student body. For parents considering Natchez High School, the most pressing concerns are low academic proficiency, high chronic absenteeism, and a recent dip in graduation rates. The school's best opportunities for improvement lie in boosting attendance, strengthening instruction in core subjects, and learning from the practices of its higher-performing same-district counterpart.
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