Best Middle Schools in Zip Code 38611

Zip code 38611 is served by one middle school, Byhalia Middle School, which enrolls 438 students in grades 5 through 8 as part of the Marshall County School District. This is a very high-poverty school, with 99.32% of students receiving free or reduced-price lunch, and a chronic absenteeism rate of 26.2%—slightly above the state average of 23.9%. The district itself ranks 82nd out of 134 Mississippi districts, placing it in the 39th percentile with a 2-star rating.

Byhalia Middle School has shown meaningful improvement over the past year. Its state ranking rose from 209th out of 266 schools in 2024–2025 to 178th out of 260 in 2025–2026, and its star rating improved from 1 to 2 stars. In the most recent year, 9 of 10 grade-and-subject combinations improved, with especially large gains in 5th grade science (+18 points) and 8th grade science (+14.4 points). The school matches or exceeds its district average in 7th grade ELA, 7th grade math, and 8th grade math, but trails notably in 6th grade math (23.8% vs. 35.3% district) and 5th grade math and science. Relative to the state, the biggest gaps are in math, particularly 6th grade math (23.8% vs. 52.7% state) and 5th grade math (21.6% vs. 49.6% state). The closest subject to the state average is 8th grade science, where Byhalia’s 57.0% proficiency is just 0.8 points below the state’s 57.8%.

An interesting pattern emerges when looking at proficiency by grade level. In the current year, math scores improve as students advance: from 21.6% in 5th grade to 39.8% in 8th grade. ELA shows the opposite trend, starting at 44.1% in 5th grade and falling to 27.7% in 7th grade before recovering slightly to 32.7% in 8th grade. Because these are different cohorts of students, the pattern should be interpreted with caution, but it still offers a useful snapshot. The only subject to decline year over year was 6th grade math, which dropped 7.1 points while the district and state both improved in that subject. Despite the high poverty and chronic absenteeism, Byhalia Middle School is clearly moving in the right direction, though it still has significant work to do to close the gap with the rest of the state, especially in mathematics.