Summary:
In zip code 71742, there is one high school, Fordyce High School, serving grades 7 through 12 in Fordyce, Arkansas, with a total enrollment of 321 students. This school is part of the Fordyce School District, which is ranked 221 out of 251 districts in the state, placing it in the 12th percentile with a 1-star rating.
Fordyce High School presents a notable paradox: it boasts a graduation rate of 92.8%, which is above the state average of 90.1%, yet its students score significantly below state averages on standardized tests. For the 2025-2026 school year, overall proficiency rates were 24.1% in English Language Arts (state: 39.4%), 22.4% in Mathematics (state: 44.1%), and 29.5% in Science (state: 44.0%). The school has consistently ranked in the bottom 10-17% of Arkansas high schools over the last three years, though its ranking improved slightly from the 10th to the 17th percentile between 2024-2025 and 2025-2026. A critical area of concern is Geometry, where proficiency was 0% in 2024-2025, recovering to only 9.9% the following year, well below the state average of 26.4%.
Despite these academic challenges, the school benefits from a very favorable student-teacher ratio of 9.4:1 and spends $13,434 per student, suggesting small class sizes and significant resources. A bright spot is 8th-grade Algebra, where 61.6% of students were proficient in 2025-2026, though this still trails the state average of 73.9%. The high free/reduced lunch rate of 73.83% indicates a high-poverty student population, which often correlates with additional educational hurdles. Year-over-year data shows improvement in overall proficiency across subjects, which could signal positive changes, but the small school size means performance can be volatile from year to year.
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