Summary:
Zip code 36611 is home to just one elementary school, Chickasaw City Elementary School, a small PK-2 campus in Chickasaw, Alabama, serving 331 students within the Chickasaw City district.
For parents, the most important takeaway is that this school serves a very young population (pre-kindergarten through 2nd grade) in a high-poverty area, with 74% of students qualifying for free or reduced lunch. The school’s academic rankings place it in the bottom third of Alabama elementary schools, with a 2023-24 state rank of 497 out of 684. Its performance has been somewhat inconsistent, improving to the 33rd percentile in 2022-23 before slipping back to the 27th percentile in 2023-24. The student-teacher ratio is 16.5:1, slightly above the typical elementary average, and per-student spending is $8,935, which is below the national average. The district itself ranks in the bottom 13% of Alabama districts, indicating broader systemic challenges beyond just this one campus.
The most striking concern is chronic absenteeism. At 17.7%, the rate is nearly four times higher than the district average of 4.6% and well above the state average of 12.0%. This is a significant outlier and likely the single biggest barrier to student success. Given the school’s narrow grade span, its low rankings reflect the performance of very young children, where developmental variability and kindergarten readiness gaps—especially in high-poverty settings—can heavily influence results. While the school faces real challenges with resources and attendance, the early-grades-only structure means these metrics may not fully capture the quality of instruction. For parents, addressing the absenteeism issue would be the highest-leverage way to improve outcomes at this school.
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