Summary:
Zip code 35111 (Mc Calla, Alabama) is home to just one high school, McAdory High School, a large 9-12 campus in the Jefferson County district serving 1,259 students.
For parents, the most important takeaway is that McAdory is a school showing real signs of improvement, but it still faces significant challenges. Academically, the school has made dramatic year-over-year gains: math proficiency more than doubled from 4% to 9.7%, science jumped from 11.6% to 24.5%, and English nearly tripled from 5.1% to 14.8%. This progress helped the school climb from the 9th to the 24th percentile in state rankings. However, these numbers still lag well behind district and state averages—for example, only 9.7% of 11th graders are proficient in math compared to 27.2% statewide. The school's biggest red flag is chronic absenteeism at 31.6%, which is nearly double the district rate (16.9%) and more than 2.5 times the state rate (12%). This means roughly one in three students is missing significant instructional time, which likely holds back overall performance even as attending students show improvement.
On the positive side, McAdory maintains a solid 89.5% graduation rate, just 2 points below the state average, despite its academic struggles and high absenteeism. About 52.7% of students qualify for free or reduced lunch, indicating moderate economic need, and the school operates with a student-teacher ratio of 18.1:1 and per-student spending of $8,839. The combination of rising test scores, a stable graduation rate, and persistent absenteeism suggests a school in transition—one that is making meaningful academic strides but still needs to tackle its attendance crisis to unlock further gains. Parents should view McAdory as a school with genuine momentum, but one where math proficiency and chronic absenteeism remain critical areas requiring attention.
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