Best High Schools in Zip Code 35005

Zip code 35005 is served by a single high school, Minor High School, which enrolls 978 students in grades 9-12 in the Adamsville area and is part of the Jefferson County school district.

Minor High School presents a mixed picture for parents. The most positive metric is its graduation rate of 93.3%, which actually exceeds both the district (90.8%) and state (91.5%) averages. However, academic proficiency on the 11th-grade summative assessment is very low. In math, only 6.3% of students are proficient, compared to 15.17% for the district and 27.21% for the state. Science proficiency is the school's strongest subject at 20.08%, but still trails the district (25.31%) and state (36.17%). English proficiency is 10.61%, well below the district's 18.92% and state's 33.73%. This creates a notable paradox: students are graduating at high rates, yet most are not meeting grade-level academic standards. A major concern is chronic absenteeism, with 28.1% of students missing 10% or more of the school year—more than double the state rate of 12.0%. This likely contributes significantly to the low test scores. The school also serves a predominantly low-income population, with 72.7% of students receiving free or reduced lunch, and has a student-teacher ratio of 16.5:1 with per-student spending of $9,563.

There are some encouraging signs. From 2024-2025 to 2025-2026, proficiency rates improved in all subjects: math jumped from 1.79% to 6.3%, science from 16.07% to 20.08%, and English from 7.66% to 10.61%. While these gains are from a very low baseline, they suggest recent interventions may be starting to work. The school consistently ranks in the bottom 15% of Alabama high schools, and its performance is below the Jefferson County district average across all subjects, indicating challenges are concentrated at this specific school. For parents, the key takeaway is that Minor High School excels at getting students to graduation, but the high absenteeism rate and low academic proficiency are critical issues that need targeted attention.