Summary:
Zip code 35010, encompassing Alexander City, Alabama, is served by a single high school, Benjamin Russell High School, which educates students in grades 9 through 12 within the Alexander City district.
For parents in this area, Benjamin Russell High School is the sole option, making its performance the direct indicator of local educational quality. The school enrolls 852 students with a favorable student-teacher ratio of 15.4:1. However, the most pressing concern is a clear downward trend in academic performance. State rankings have fallen sharply from the 75th percentile (4 stars) in 2023-2024 to the 48th percentile (2 stars) in 2025-2026, a drop of over 100 positions. Proficiency rates on the 11th-grade summative assessments declined across all subjects between the 2024-2025 and 2025-2026 school years, with mathematics showing the most significant gap, falling to 16.98% proficient compared to the state average of 27.21%. While the school outperformed state averages in science and English in 2024-2025, it fell below state averages in every subject the following year.
Beyond test scores, the school's graduation rate stands at 88.8%, which is 2.7 percentage points below the state average of 91.5%. Chronic absenteeism is slightly better than the state average (11.8% vs. 12.0%) but higher than the district's rate of 9.3%. The student body is predominantly economically disadvantaged, with 58.22% qualifying for free or reduced lunch, a factor that often correlates with academic challenges. With per-student spending at $10,158, the school faces the considerable task of reversing its recent academic declines and closing the achievement gap, particularly in mathematics, to better serve its students and the community.
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