Bullock County High School

Bullock County High School in Union Springs, AL, serves 448 students in grades 9-12 within the Bullock County district, a rural area where the vast majority of families face significant economic challenges.

This school is facing a serious academic crisis, most notably in mathematics, where proficiency has been essentially zero for three straight years (0% in 2022-2023, 0% in 2023-2024, and 0.84% in 2024-2025). Even in the most recent 2025-2026 data, only 2% of students scored proficient in math, compared to the state average of 27.21%. Science and English proficiency also lag far behind state averages, with English hovering in the 11-18% range. Perhaps the most alarming trend is chronic absenteeism, which has skyrocketed from 19.9% in 2021-2022 to 55.5% in 2024-2025—meaning more than half of the student body is chronically absent, a rate 4.6 times higher than the state average. This attendance crisis likely compounds the academic struggles, as the graduation rate has fallen from 94.1% in 2018-2019 to 76.2% in 2024-2025, well below the state average of 91.5%.

Despite these challenges, there are some bright spots. English Language Learners at Bullock County ranked in the 73rd percentile statewide in 2025-2026 (4 stars), and Special Education students showed significant improvement, jumping to the 61st percentile (3 stars). These successes suggest targeted interventions can work. When compared to nearby Booker T Washington High in Tuskegee, Bullock County actually outperforms in 11th-grade English (13.19% vs. 6.25%) but trails in science (12% vs. 23.23%) and has a dramatically higher chronic absenteeism rate (55.5% vs. 36.7%). With per-student spending of $12,016 and an improved student-teacher ratio of 17.9:1, the school has comparable resources to nearby schools—the question is whether those resources are being effectively deployed, particularly in math instruction and attendance interventions.