Senatobia Middle School

Senatobia Middle School serves 407 students in grades 6–8 in Senatobia, MS, and is part of the Senatobia Municipal School District, a 4-star district ranked 39th in Mississippi. The school itself, however, ranks 127th out of 260 Mississippi middle schools for the 2025–2026 school year, placing it right at the state median with a 3-star rating.

Academically, Senatobia Middle School's average proficiency across all tested subjects is about 46%, close to the state average of 49%. That places it squarely between two very different groups of nearby schools: Lewisburg Middle School and Hernando Middle School, both in the DeSoto County School District and among the top middle schools in Mississippi with roughly 75% and 68% proficiency respectively, and North Panola Middle School, one of the lowest-ranked schools in the state at about 27% proficiency. Senatobia's 6th graders exceed state averages in both ELA and math, but performance fades by 7th and 8th grade, when most subjects fall below state averages. The most persistent weakness is 8th grade science, where 43.2% of students are proficient compared to the state average of 57.8% — a gap the school has not closed within 10 points in the past four years.

Senatobia serves a high-poverty community, with 65.36% of students eligible for free or reduced lunch — far higher than Lewisburg (21.79%) and Hernando (26.97%), but well below North Panola (98.77%). Chronic absenteeism sits at 23.9%, matching the state average but above both DeSoto County schools. On a positive note, the student-teacher ratio of 15.7 to 1 is slightly better than its high-performing neighbors, and Senatobia significantly outperforms North Panola despite both serving communities with elevated poverty rates. While the district's 4-star rating reflects strength elsewhere, Senatobia Middle School's path forward likely lies in targeted support for 7th and 8th grade literacy and math, a stronger science curriculum, and efforts to reduce chronic absenteeism.