Summary:
There is one middle school in zip code 39520: Bay Waveland Middle School, serving grades 6 through 8 in Bay Saint Louis, Mississippi, with 365 students enrolled in the Bay Waveland School District.
Bay Waveland Middle School is an exceptional academic performer and the only middle school in this zip code, so there is no local school-to-school comparison. Instead, its performance is best understood relative to the state. The school currently ranks #8 out of 260 Mississippi middle schools, placing it in the 97th percentile with a 5-star rating. This is a dramatic jump from #38 the previous year. The district itself is ranked #1 out of 134 districts in Mississippi. In every tested subject and grade level on the MAAP assessment, the school beats the state average, often by large margins. The biggest strengths are in math and science: 8th-grade math proficiency is 79.4% versus the state’s 51.4%, a 28-point advantage, while 7th-grade math hits 82.4% and 8th-grade science sits at 78.5%. English language arts is also strong, though 7th-grade ELA at 49.5% proficient lags behind the 6th and 8th grade scores of 70.7% and 58.0%, suggesting a possible area for literacy support.
Year-over-year gains are impressive across nearly every subject, with average proficiency rising from 61.5% in 2024–2025 to 69.9% in 2025–2026. The only slight decline was 6th-grade math, which still remains far above state levels. One concern stands out: chronic absenteeism. The school reports 30.9% of students chronically absent, compared to 24.2% for the district and 23.9% statewide. That means roughly one in three students misses significant school time. Even with this risk factor, the school continues to deliver excellent results, which points to strong instruction and intervention systems. For parents, Bay Waveland Middle School offers elite academics, especially in STEM subjects, and a clear upward trajectory, but attendance is a metric to watch closely.
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