Summary:
Zip code 36853 is home to just one high school, Dadeville High School, a mid-sized institution in Dadeville, Alabama, serving grades 6 through 12 with an enrollment of 534 students within the Tallapoosa County district.
For parents considering this area, the most important takeaway is that Dadeville High School serves a predominantly low-income student body—67.6% qualify for free or reduced lunch—and faces significant academic challenges, particularly at the high school level. The school holds a 1-star rating and ranks 287th out of 380 Alabama high schools, a decline from the previous year. While 8th graders show a relative strength in math, with 34.5% proficiency exceeding the state average of 26.4%, this advantage disappears by 11th grade, where only 8.3% of students are proficient in math compared to the state's 27.2%. English proficiency similarly drops from 39.5% in 8th grade to just 18.8% in 11th grade. This dramatic decline suggests students are leaving significantly underprepared for college or careers, and the school consistently underperforms its own district across nearly all metrics—for example, 11th-grade math proficiency is 8.33% versus the district's 20.89%.
On a more positive note, the school maintains a graduation rate of 89.3%, close to the state average of 91.5%, and chronic absenteeism at 11.8% is essentially on par with the state. The student-teacher ratio of 21.2:1 is relatively high, and per-student spending is $10,217, which may limit individualized attention. The unusual 6-12 grade configuration means middle schoolers share a campus with high schoolers, and year-over-year test scores show extreme volatility—7th-grade math proficiency jumped from 4.65% to 30.14% in one year—suggesting inconsistent instructional quality. Overall, while the school successfully retains students through graduation, the steep academic decline in high school represents its most critical area needing intervention.
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