Summary:
In zip code 39476, there is a single high school: Richton High School, which serves grades 7 through 12 and enrolls 281 students as part of the Richton School District. This small-school environment gives students a 12.6-to-1 student-teacher ratio, allowing for relatively personalized attention. The district and school are effectively the same, since Richton High School is the only school in the district, so district-level results mirror the school's performance exactly.
Richton High School posts a strong 94.1% graduation rate for 2024-2025, beating the state average by 4.9 percentage points. In math, the school shines: 7th-grade math proficiency reached 69.6% in 2025-2026, nearly 12 points above the state, and Algebra I proficiency hit 78.5%, 12.5 points higher than the state average. However, English language arts is a weak spot: only 26.1% of 7th graders and 27.3% of 8th graders scored proficient, well below state averages. Science also lags, with 8th-grade science at 36.3% versus 57.8% statewide, though Biology showed improvement, jumping from 47.0% to 58.3% in one year. Chronic absenteeism is a significant concern, with 32.7% of students missing enough school to be considered chronically absent, compared to 23.9% statewide.
Despite being a high-poverty school with 61.57% of students eligible for free or reduced-price lunch, Richton High School manages to outperform state averages in math and graduation, showing that its targeted efforts can succeed. The school's state ranking has been volatile, shifting from the 65th percentile in 2023-2024 down to the 47th in 2024-2025, then back to the 57th in 2025-2026. This instability may stem from the small student body, where year-to-year changes in small cohorts can have a large impact. For parents, the key takeaway is that Richton offers strong math instruction and a high graduation rate, but families should be aware of the ELA and science gaps and the high absenteeism rate, which may affect overall academic consistency.
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