Summary:
Zip code 35218 in Birmingham, Alabama is home to 2 schools in the Birmingham City district, serving students from pre-kindergarten through 12th grade in a community where 80-86% of students qualify for free or reduced lunch.
For parents considering schools in this area, the two options serve very different grade levels and show contrasting trajectories. Minor Elementary School (PK-5, 441 students) is showing signs of improvement, having earned 1 star this year after receiving 0 stars previously, and its ranking improved from 639th to 614th out of roughly 680 elementary schools. The school's 5th grade English proficiency (48.05%) nearly matches the district average, and 3rd grade math proficiency more than doubled from 12.82% to 27.14% year-over-year. However, chronic absenteeism runs at 17%, and math proficiency still lags behind English across all grade levels. In contrast, Jackson-Olin High School (9-12, 713 students) faces severe challenges, ranking 363rd out of 380 Alabama high schools with a 0-star rating. Its graduation rate sits at just 63.8% compared to the state's 91.5%, and 11th grade math proficiency is an extraordinarily low 1.67%.
The most striking finding is the achievement cliff between these schools: Minor Elementary's 3rd graders achieve 27.14% math proficiency, but by 11th grade at Jackson-Olin, that figure collapses to 1.67%—a 94% decline. Interestingly, Jackson-Olin actually has better attendance (9.3% chronic absenteeism) than Minor Elementary (17%), suggesting high school struggles stem from deeper instructional issues rather than truancy. Both schools spend over $12,000 per student yet produce some of the lowest scores in the state, raising questions about resource allocation and the impact of concentrated poverty. While Minor Elementary offers a glimmer of hope with recent gains, parents should be aware that students in this zip code face significant academic hurdles, particularly in mathematics, and that the transition from elementary to high school appears to be a critical point of learning loss.
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