Bayou Academy

Bayou Academy is a non-profit school located in unincorporated Bolivar County, Mississippi, near the City of Cleveland on Highway 8. The school serves about 500 students in grades Pre-Kindergarten through 12.
The school is accredited by the Midsouth Association of Independent Schools.

History

Bayou Academy was founded in 1964 as a segregation academy. In 1966, the all-white school board sold Skene Attendance Center to a white group called Skene Civic Improvement Society, Inc. for $1.00. The property was then leased to Bolivar Academy, achieving a transfer of public property to the segregationist group. After the Supreme Court of [the United States|United States Supreme Court] decided Alexander v. Holmes [County Board of Education] in 1969, ordering the desegregation of public schools in the South, the all-white Bayou Academy doubled its enrollment for the 1970 school year. In 2009, the old Skene school building burned to the ground.
In 2021 the former elementary school principal was arrested for placing a camera in the girls locker room.
Of the 372 students who attended in the 2011–2012 school year, 99 percent were white.