Summary:
The 7 schools in zip code 35405 (Tuscaloosa, AL) serve approximately 4,723 students across Tuscaloosa County and Tuscaloosa City districts, spanning pre-K through 12th grade in a predominantly lower-income area where free/reduced lunch rates range from 50% to 76%.
For parents, the standout school is Woodland Forrest Elementary, which boasts an exceptional 1.8% chronic absenteeism rate—far below the district average of 11.1%—and showed the area's biggest improvement in state ranking, jumping from the 23rd to 36th percentile. Hillcrest High School is the academic climber, with math proficiency jumping from 15.3% to 23.1%, science soaring from 19.4% to 37.7%, and a strong 93.1% graduation rate that beats both district and state averages. However, Hillcrest Middle School is the area's biggest challenge—only 5.4% of 6th graders are proficient in math, a staggering 30-point gap below the state average, and the school has ranked in the bottom quarter of Alabama middle schools for three straight years.
The most striking pattern is the "middle school slide": elementary schools like Southview Elementary (25% 3rd-grade math) and Englewood Elementary (13.3% 3rd-grade math) feed into a middle school where 6th-grade math proficiency collapses to 5.4%. English is a relative strength across all schools—for example, Englewood's 5th graders hit 66.7% English proficiency versus just 17.2% in math. Skyland Elementary spends the most per student ($11,558) with the lowest student-teacher ratio (16.5:1) yet ranks in the bottom 28% statewide, while Taylorville Primary (PK-2) has no test data, creating a blind spot in early development. Hillcrest High's 19.1% chronic absenteeism rate—nearly 60% above the state average—is a red flag despite its improving scores.
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