Stone Elementary School

Stone Elementary School serves 714 students in grades K-5 in Wiggins, MS, and is part of the highly rated Stone County School District. While it remains an above-average school compared to the rest of Mississippi, it has experienced a noticeable decline over the past few years, dropping from a 5-star, 27th-place state ranking (2023-24) to a 4-star, 96th-place ranking (2025-26).

The school’s biggest academic red flag is a dramatic collapse in 4th-grade math. After scoring an impressive 80.7% proficiency in 3rd-grade math, the same group of students plummeted to just 46.3% in 4th grade—a 23-point drop that falls below the state average. This is not a widespread trend; for comparison, Perkinston Elementary School saw its similar cohort improve by nearly 8 points in the same timeframe. Stone also has the highest student-teacher ratio (18.7) among nearby schools, which may be adding strain to its large enrollment. On a positive note, chronic absenteeism (20.7%) is a relative bright spot, beating the state average and most neighboring schools.

Reading and language arts is another growing concern. ELA proficiency has fallen from 74.6% to 59.5% over two years, making it the lowest among comparison schools like West Wortham Elementary and Middle School and Benndale Elementary School. Science scores (73.5%) are just above the state average but trail far behind West Wortham and Benndale, which both exceed 94%. While West Wortham has similar poverty levels, it achieves significantly higher proficiency, showing that Stone’s recent decline is not inevitable. With rising class sizes and slipping scores, Stone is at a pivotal moment; it remains a solid school, but must reverse this trend to keep pace with peers like Perkinston, which now outranks it within the district.