Summary:
Zip code 39212 in Jackson, Mississippi is served by a single elementary school, Oak Forest Elementary School (grades K–5, 436 students), which operates within the Jackson Public Schools district and serves a student body where 100% of students qualify for free/reduced-price lunch.
Academically, Oak Forest is a low-performing school overall, ranking in the bottom 10% of Mississippi elementary schools, though its state ranking has ticked up from the 5th to the 8th percentile. The clearest bright spot is 5th grade: in the most recent year, 51.3% of 5th graders scored proficient in ELA — 7 points above the district average and close to the state's 55.8% — while 5th grade math proficiency jumped 20 points to 29.2%. However, results are uneven. Only 14.5% of 3rd graders and 27.7% of 4th graders were proficient in ELA, and math proficiency was just 8.7% for 3rd grade. Across seven tested areas, Oak Forest beat the district average in only 5th grade ELA, and it trails the state by 20–40 points in most subjects.
One meaningful strength is attendance: the chronic absenteeism rate is 16.5% — well below the district's 30.1% and even below the state's 23.9% — a notable achievement for a high-poverty school. Year-over-year progress has been uneven: 5th grade ELA soared by 30 points, but 4th grade ELA fell by 11.5 points and 4th grade math slipped 8.2 points, suggesting gains may be cohort-specific rather than schoolwide. With no other elementary schools in the same zip code, parents evaluating Oak Forest should compare it to district and state benchmarks. The bottom line: Oak Forest is a high-poverty, low-ranking school overall, but its strong attendance and impressive 5th grade improvement show real potential — the challenge is sustaining those gains and lifting math achievement across all grades.
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