Best Elementary Schools in Zip Code 38773

Zip code 38773 in Shaw, Mississippi is served by one elementary school, McEvans Elementary School, which enrolls 204 students in grades K–6 as part of the West Bolivar Consolidated School District. This is a high-poverty school where 100% of students qualify for free/reduced-price lunch, yet it maintains a favorable student-teacher ratio of 12.3 to 1. Over the past several years, McEvans has shown remarkable progress: it moved from the 1st percentile in statewide rankings in 2017–18 to the 19th percentile in 2025–26, earning its first star in Mississippi’s rating system. While still below the state median, this jump from near-bottom to the lower-middle range signals meaningful improvement for a school in a district that ranks in the 8th percentile statewide.

The clearest bright spot is 4th grade, where students outperform both the district and the state in key subjects. In English Language Arts, 60.9% of 4th graders are proficient, compared to 52.4% statewide; in math, 69.5% are proficient versus 51.5% statewide. These results are especially notable given the school’s high-poverty context. However, there is a sharp collapse in upper-grade mathematics: 5th grade math proficiency is just 8.3%, and 6th grade falls to 5.7%, a drop of more than 60 percentage points from 4th grade. This pattern suggests that whatever is working in 4th grade is not carrying forward, and the transition to more advanced math content may need urgent instructional attention.

Chronic absenteeism at McEvans is 24.0%, nearly identical to the state average of 23.9% and well below the district’s 32.2%, but it still means about one in four students misses significant school time. The school generally outperforms its district in most tested grades and subjects, but it still trails Mississippi averages in most categories. The central takeaway for parents is that McEvans is a school in transition: it has strong pockets of excellence, especially in 4th grade, but faces serious challenges in sustaining achievement across all grade levels, particularly in math. The school’s biggest opportunity lies in investigating the dramatic post-4th grade decline and replicating the successful strategies used in 4th grade throughout the entire school.