Castleberry High School

Castleberry High School in Fort Worth, TX, serves 1,085 students in grades 9-12 and is the flagship school of the Castleberry Independent School District (Isd), located in a predominantly low-income area where over 90% of students qualify for free or reduced lunch.

Castleberry High School stands out for its exceptional ability to keep students on track to graduate, with a consistently high graduation rate of 92-96% over the last five years and a very low dropout rate of just 0.3% in 2023-2024. This is a major strength compared to nearby schools like North Side High School (89.3% graduation rate, 2.9% dropout rate) and Arlington Heights High School (90.3% graduation rate, 1.5% dropout rate). The school also shows strong support for English Language Learners, ranking in the 65th percentile for this group in 2025-2026, a stark contrast to the district's other high school, Reach High School, which struggles across all metrics. While standardized test scores in subjects like Algebra I and Biology are below state averages, the school's recent improvement—climbing from the 21st to the 30th percentile overall—suggests new initiatives are taking effect.

Castleberry's most compelling story is its recent, sharp improvement in serving specific student groups, with African American students jumping from the 34th to the 71st percentile and English Language Learners from the 33rd to the 65th percentile in just one year. This progress is achieved with a moderate student-teacher ratio of 15.3 and spending of about $11,000 per student, which is in line with larger Fort Worth ISD schools but far less than alternative schools like Reach High School ($19,534 per student). The school's primary challenge remains translating its strong graduation culture into higher academic proficiency on state assessments, but its recent gains point to a resilient institution actively working to close achievement gaps.