Miami Jackson Senior High School

Miami Jackson Senior High School is a large, traditional public high school in the Miami-Dade district, serving 1,213 students in grades 9-12, with a majority of students coming from economically disadvantaged backgrounds.

The school's most critical challenge is an extremely high chronic absenteeism rate of 65.7% for the 2023-2024 school year, which is more than double the district and state averages. This directly impacts academic performance, as students who are not in class cannot benefit from instruction. However, there is a notable paradox: despite low test scores, the school boasts a graduation rate of 94.6% in 2024-2025, above district and state averages. This suggests the school is effective at helping students complete credits through programs like credit recovery, even if academic proficiency remains low. Encouragingly, test scores have shown consistent improvement over the last three years, with Algebra 1 proficiency rising from 25% to 41%, Geometry from 24% to 45%, and US History from 37% to 73%.

For context, nearby Young Men's Preparatory Academy, a magnet school just 1.77 miles away, serves a similar demographic but achieves vastly different results, ranking in the 78th percentile with proficiency rates 20-40 percentage points higher. This comparison highlights the potential impact of school size and resources, as Young Men's Prep is much smaller with lower student-teacher ratios and higher per-pupil spending. Other nearby schools like Secondary Student Success Center 802 and Pace Center For Girls serve specialized at-risk populations, making them less directly comparable. Miami Jackson's primary strategic challenge is to translate its success in graduating students into stronger academic preparation, with tackling chronic absenteeism being the most urgent priority.