Bankston Elementary School has historically paced the Greenwood public schools on standardized test scores.
The school is leading this fall, however, in a less favorable category. It has experienced an enrollment decline that by far exceeds anything seen at any of the district's other five schools.
Figures released by the school district earlier this month show the number of students enrolled in Bankston Elementary School fell 27 percent over the past year while the total in the Greenwood School District dropped only 2 percent.
Bankston, which serves grades kindergarten through 6, has 357 students in classrooms this year, compared to 486 last year.
Though black enrollment at the school fell 36 percent, from 242 in 2004 to 154 in 2005, last year's black enrollment was unusually high due to a large number of students transferring into Bankston from other attendance zones. Black enrollment this year is roughly the same as it was in 1995. White enrollment, however, continues its steady slide. It declined 18 percent last year and has dropped by 48 percent over the past decade.
Some white parents, such as Kenny Williams, are bothered by the continuing white flight from public schools.
Bankston is the lone public school in Leflore County with a significant white enrollment.
"I personally believe we have a good school in Bankston," said Williams, "and the white community should use it."
Black enrollment at Bankston was held down this year because of court-mandated limits on minority-to-majority transfers from outside the attendance zone.
The attendance zone for Bankston is composed chiefly of North Greenwood, which has a predominantly white population, according to Alix Sanders, attorney for the Greenwood School Board.
The desegregation decree under which the city school district operates says the school must reflect the racial composition of its zone.
Thus, the number of black students who may transfer into Bankston is restricted.
Last year, minority-to-majority transfers of black students to the school gave Bankston a slight black majority for the first time in the school's history.
"The moment you change the status of Bankston, then the transfer would go the other way," Sanders said. "The district wouldn't have any authority to change the status of Bankston."
This year the school has an enrollment that is 53 percent white and 43 percent black. Four percent of the student body is Hispanic or Asian.
More white students will have to enroll in Bankston before the school can accept more black transfers.
Angela Harris' fifth-grade son transferred to Bankston from Davis Elementary School zone in 2004.
But he's back in Davis because the family didn't make a deadline for applying for transfers.
The school district notified Harris by mail that school registration would begin July 28. However, Harris said, she discovered the school district posted the deadline for out-of-zone transfers a week earlier.
The school district published notification of the deadline for transfers in the Commonwealth several times, beginning July 21, but Harris said she was out of town and did not see the ads.
She also said she had no idea that minority-to-majority transfers to Bankston would be limited.
If there was a limit in 2004, she didn't know about it.
The district allowed 171 black students to transfer from other zones to Bankston last year.
This year, Harris said, the number was greatly reduced. "They stopped at 74 or something," she said. "We were 77 or 78, I believe."
Harris wasn't the only parent stung by the limitations on transfers.
"There were a lot of people who wanted to take their children back to Bankston but couldn't," she said, adding that she didn't speak for other parents, just for her situation.
Harris sought out Bankston for her son because it had a top state rating.
In 2003 and 2004, Bankston received a Level 5, or superior, rating, the highest bestowed by the Mississippi Department of Education. This year's achievement rating dropped a notch to Level 4, or exemplary.
Under the state accountability standards, schools are graded individually based on student performance on a battery of standardized tests.
Other than wanting her son in a high-performing school, Harris realized that her fifth-grader needed to be around his intellectual peers. Harris' son scores in the top level on achievement tests.
There were "more students at that school who were scoring in the same range as he is," Harris said. This provides him with a greater "challenge."
The same racial balance that keeps Harris' son out of Bankston has white students leaving for different reasons.
"A lot of people left last year because the balance did swing," said Holly Mooneyham, co-president of the Bankston Parent-Teacher Organization.
Mooneyham, who serves in the PTO's top spot with her husband, Jeffrey, doesn't agree with removing children from the school for that reason.
Just where that white flight might be going depends on whom you ask.
For instance, Betty DuBard, who sells real estate, says some people likely left Greenwood for economic opportunities elsewhere.
She saw some of this out-migration through turnover in rental property owned by DuBard Investments.
"People left the area to get work. It is a simple case of jobs," she said.
But another perspective comes from Tish Goodman, another real estate salesperson. She countered DuBard's assessment by saying, "if there were 10 who left, there were nine who came because they got a job opportunity here."
But there's more.
Some Bankston students had to leave the school last year. They came from Carroll County and paid tuition to the Greenwood School District to attend the elementary school.
But the U.S. Justice Department, which oversees the administration of the consent decree that maintains the school's racial balance, told school district officials they could not continue to allow tuition-paying students from other districts to attend Greenwood public schools, said Richard Oakes, another school district attorney.
As a result, this year, some of those students from outside the county moved to private schools.
Carroll Academy saw its enrollment jump 16 percent overall, including a 23 percent bump in the elementary grades.
The increase in students came from Greenwood, Carroll County and other places, such as Winona, said Cameron Wright, headmaster.
He is certain the private school picked up some Bankston students, but he doesn't know how many.
