Summary:
Zip code 38967 contains just one high school, Winona Secondary School, which serves grades 7–12 with an enrollment of 502 students in the Winona-Montgomery Consolidated School District, a district ranked 107th out of 134 districts in Mississippi. The student body is almost entirely economically disadvantaged, with 99.4% of students qualifying for free or reduced lunch. The school maintains a favorable student-teacher ratio of 10.4, but despite this, it significantly underperforms the state in every academic subject.
Winona Secondary School's state ranking has declined for three straight years, dropping from the 35th percentile in 2023–2024 to the 30th in 2024–2025, and now to the 22nd percentile in 2025–2026, with its star rating falling from 2 stars to 1 star. The graduation rate stands at 77.6%, nearly 12 percentage points below the state average of 89.2%, meaning more than one in five students does not graduate on time. Chronic absenteeism affects 25.6% of students, exceeding both the district and state rates. In the most recent testing year, the school trailed the state by an average of 13.7 percentage points across all assessments, with the largest gaps in 8th grade science (−22.3 points), Algebra I (−18.7 points), and Biology (−14.7 points).
There are some bright spots: between 2024–2025 and 2025–2026, 7th and 8th grade English Language Arts improved, and 8th grade math rose sharply from 31.2% to 43.4% proficiency. However, 7th grade math and 8th grade science declined. Interestingly, the school's test scores are identical to its district's scores in every reported subject, confirming that Winona Secondary School is effectively the only school driving its district's accountability results. The combination of extreme poverty, high chronic absenteeism, and a declining state ranking points to systemic challenges, though the recent ELA and 8th grade math gains suggest targeted improvements are possible.
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