Forest Elementary

Forest Elementary operates as a sizable K-5 school in FOREST, Mississippi, part of Forest Municipal School District. Current enrollment sits at 740 students spanning grades pre-K through 4. That puts it 66% larger than the typical public school in Mississippi, which averages around 446 students.

Forest Elementary is one of 3 schools operated by Forest Municipal School District, a district that serves 1,638 students overall.

Looking at the student body, Forest Elementary lists that the largest single group is Hispanic at 51%, but no single group is in the majority. The remainder consists of 39% Black, 6% White, 3% multiracial. By comparison, Scott County as a whole is about 16% Hispanic, so the school skews visibly more Hispanic than its surroundings.

Looking at the economic backdrop, The school currently runs with 40 full-time-equivalent teachers, for a student-teacher ratio near 18.4:1. Statewide, the average ratio sits near 15.9:1, putting Forest Elementary higher than the state norm the norm. An estimated 84% of students are eligible for free or reduced-price lunch, which schools and policymakers use as a rough income-mix signal. That share is noticeably below Scott County's rate of about 95%.

On a residual basis (actual vs predicted given the student mix), Forest Elementary performs roughly as the BeatsExpectations model predicts for a school with this FRL share. The predicted value is around 51.9%, the actual is 38.1%, a residual of -13.8 points.

In the broader community, community-level numbers for Scott County indicate median household income runs about $48,786, 14% of adults hold a bachelor's degree or higher, and the poverty rate sits near 17%. In all, Scott County runs 12 public schools (combined enrollment of about 5,627 students), of which Forest Elementary is one.

Nearest neighbor: Forest High School, around 0.1 miles off. 2 of the 8 nearest public schools sit inside a five-mile radius. Ranking that nearby cluster on reported proficiency puts Forest Elementary at 4th of 4; the average score across the group is 55.8%.

The school occupies a low-density site.

Five-year trend. Looking back 7 years, enrollment at Forest Elementary has decreased 5%, going from 780 students in 2018 to 740 in 2025. The Hispanic share of enrollment grew from 37% to 51% over that span.

On this page, posts here usually surface around fundraisers, lost-and-found posts, and report-card season. Anyone with firsthand experience at this school can post or comment.