Summary:
Zip code 39702 contains one middle school, New Hope Middle School, which serves 604 students in grades 6–8 in Columbus, Mississippi. The school is part of the Lowndes County School District, which ranks 53rd out of 134 districts in Mississippi and holds a 3-star rating. With a student-teacher ratio of 13.1:1 and a free/reduced lunch rate of 68.54%, the school serves a predominantly economically disadvantaged population.
New Hope Middle School shows clear academic strengths in mathematics. In 2025–2026, Algebra I End-of-Course proficiency hit 93.4%, far surpassing the district's 74.2% and the state's 66.0%. Grade-level math averages also exceeded ELA averages, with 7th-grade math at 63.2% proficient. However, English Language Arts is a concern, especially in grades 7 and 8, where proficiency rates of 30.7% and 35.6% trail both district and state averages. Additionally, 8th-grade math proficiency (46.1%) falls below the district (56.2%) and state (51.4%), likely because advanced students take Algebra I instead of the standard course.
The school's most pressing issue is chronic absenteeism, which rose to 33.8% in 2023–2024—roughly 14 percentage points higher than the district's 20.0% and 10 points above the state's 23.9%. Nearly one in three students was chronically absent, which may help explain both the ELA struggles and the school's ranking decline from a 4-star, 72nd-percentile rating in 2023–2024 to a 3-star, 56th-percentile rating in 2025–2026. Despite these challenges, the math program remains a standout, and addressing attendance will likely be key to restoring the school's previous standing.
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