Marion County adding new middle schools, improving infrastructure for new school year

MARION COUNTY, Miss. (WDAM) – The Marion County School District is adding a new middle school format for the upcoming school year.

Last year, grades seventh through 12th grade were included in the same school, at both East and West Marion high schools.

For 2024-25, only grades ninth through 12th will be at the high schools.

Sixth through eighth grades at East Marion will attend a junior high school building on campus.

Over at West Marion, fifth through eighth grades will attend the former West Marion Elementary School, which has been re-designated as a middle school.

The fourth-grade class at the former West Marion Elementary will be moved to West Marion Primary School.

“What we discovered is that the seventh and eighth grades got less and less attention, because most of the principals and their support staff were working with the upper classmen, getting them ready to graduate and, traditionally, those were our underperforming grades academically, and we began to notice that social and emotional needs were getting more prevalent in those grades,” Marion County School District Superintendent Carl Michael Day said.

“So, we decided to make the shift last year, unofficially, so last year, we went unofficially, with a focus group of support staff working with those students, and this year, we went ahead and made it official.”

Meanwhile, there’s a lot of construction going on this summer in the Marion County School District.

Several projects, totaling about $4 million, are taking place on both East and West Marion campuses.

Many roads and parking areas are being paved, a number of drainage problems are being corrected and athletic facilities are being renovated.

“I guess we hit the market just right on our bids when they went out,” Day said. “They came in well below price, so we were super excited to be able to do a few extra pieces, like we’ll actually pave a parking lot for the football at East (and) we’ll pave the parking lot for baseball and softball at West, so it should be a nice boost and upgrade to all our campus infrastructure.”

Day says all of the projects should be completed in a couple of months.

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