Best High Schools in Zip Code 39669

Zip code 39669, which covers the Woodville, Mississippi area, contains exactly one high school: Wilkinson County High School, a small public school serving grades 9–12 with 228 students and part of the Wilkinson County School District, which ranks last among Mississippi’s 134 districts.

Wilkinson County High School faces severe, persistent challenges. The school has ranked in the bottom 1% of Mississippi high schools for three consecutive years, currently sitting at 221 out of 224 schools with a 0-star rating. Its graduation rate is just 69.2%, compared to the state average of 89.2%, meaning roughly three in ten students do not graduate on time. Chronic absenteeism is a major barrier: 56.1% of students are chronically absent, more than double the state rate of 23.9%. Every single student at the school qualifies for free or reduced-price lunch, reflecting 100% economic disadvantage. On state assessments, the school trails Mississippi by massive margins in every subject. For example, Algebra I proficiency is 23.9% versus 66.0% statewide, and English II proficiency is 23.5% versus 49.3%. The gaps in mathematics are especially wide, ranging from 38 to 49 percentage points below the state average. The student-teacher ratio is a relatively low 8.6 to 1, but this does not appear to translate into academic success.

There is some encouraging news, however. Between the 2024–2025 and 2025–2026 school years, Wilkinson County High School showed improvement on end-of-course exams: Algebra I proficiency rose from 17.9% to 23.9%, English II from 15.7% to 23.5%, and Biology from 13.4% to 25.5%. Even with these gains, proficiency remains far below state norms. The district and school are effectively identical in the data, meaning this campus carries the entire district’s high school results. Since the district ranks last in Mississippi, the school’s struggles are significant. For parents, the key takeaway is that this is a high-poverty school with severe attendance problems and low academic performance, though the recent year-over-year gains in a few subjects suggest some slow progress. Any meaningful improvement will likely require comprehensive support addressing attendance, poverty-related barriers, and broader social conditions affecting students and their families.