Summary:
The Bessemer City school district in Alabama serves approximately 3,012 students across 7 public schools—5 elementary schools, 1 middle school, and 1 high school—in a predominantly low-income area where free/reduced lunch rates range from 71.72% to 84.42%.
For parents, the standout choice is Abrams Elementary School, which is the district's only school to maintain a 1-star rating for three consecutive years. It has an astonishingly low chronic absenteeism rate of just 0.4% (compared to the district average of 21.5%) and the best academic consistency, with 5th-grade math proficiency at 30.3% and English at 51.52%. Greenwood Elementary School is the most improved, jumping from the 4th to the 19th percentile in two years, and it boasts the district's highest 5th-grade English proficiency at 58.14%. In contrast, Westhills Elementary School is declining despite having low absenteeism (5.5%), ranking in the 1st percentile—a clear sign that attendance alone doesn't drive success. Bessemer City High School faces crisis-level absenteeism at 41.7%, with only 5.39% of 11th graders proficient in math and 8.59% in English. Bessemer City Middle School shows a troubling 7th-grade math proficiency of just 1.01%, though its 8th-grade science (29.63%) is a relative strength.
Overall, elementary schools outperform secondary schools, with several exceeding 50% English proficiency in 5th grade, but proficiency collapses to single digits by 11th grade. The district ranks in the 5th percentile statewide, and while spending varies from $8,921 to $14,067 per student, higher spending doesn't guarantee better results—Westhills spends the most yet performs worst. The most urgent issues are the high school's absenteeism crisis and the 7th-grade math collapse, while the successes at Abrams and Greenwood prove that improvement is possible even in high-poverty settings.
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