Summary:
Talladega, Alabama is served by 5 public schools spanning Pre-K through 12th grade, split between the Talladega City district (4 schools) and the Talladega County district (1 school), with a combined enrollment of about 1,819 students and a community where free/reduced lunch rates range from 57% to 84%.
For parents, the standout school is Stemley Road Elementary School, which dramatically outperforms its peers. It posted the best 3rd-grade math proficiency in the dataset at 66.67% (vs. 46.58% district and 44.89% state averages), jumped from the 24th to 40th percentile in a single year, and has the lowest chronic absenteeism among elementary schools at 8.9%. In contrast, Talladega High School is the biggest concern: only 6.9% of 11th graders are proficient in math (state: 27.21%), the graduation rate is 88.5% (3 points below state), and chronic absenteeism is 13.2%. Raymond L Young Elementary School shows a declining trajectory, with the highest chronic absenteeism (20.6%) despite having the lowest poverty rate (56.9%). Meanwhile, Evelyn D Houston Elementary School has the highest poverty (84.44%) but the lowest absenteeism (7.2%) and best student-teacher ratio (16.7:1), though its math proficiency drops sharply from 19.83% in 4th grade to 10.47% in 6th grade.
Key takeaways: Spending per student does not predict success — Raymond L Young spends the most ($11,290) yet struggles, while Stemley Road (second-highest spending) achieves the best results. The single Talladega County school outperforms all Talladega City schools on nearly every metric. Chronic absenteeism is a strong predictor of outcomes, and the high school math crisis (6.9% proficiency) suggests students are entering 9th grade already far behind. Stemley Road’s 44-point jump in 3rd-grade math proficiency shows that targeted interventions can work, offering a model worth studying for the rest of the district.
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