Prairie View

Prairie View High, Parker Elementary, Lacygne Elementary and Prairie View Middle make up this four-school area, serving students from elementary through high school and enrolling 903 students altogether. In the latest results, the schools’ average proficiency was 43% in math and 41% in science, above state averages of 41% and 38%; in ELA, the area average was 45%, just below the state’s 46%. The most important takeaway is that these averages conceal substantial differences between schools and, at the elementary level, between grades.

Parker Elementary leads in all-grades ELA and math, with 49% and 48% proficient, while Lacygne Elementary leads science at 46%. At the other end, Prairie View Middle has the lowest ELA result at 39%, and Prairie View High has the lowest science result at 36%; Lacygne has the lowest math result at 39%. The top-to-bottom school spread is about 10 points in ELA, 9 in math and 10 in science. Grade-level results add important context: Parker’s fourth-grade math is 66%, versus 37% at Lacygne and 44% statewide, while in third grade Lacygne leads Parker by 13 points in ELA and 15 in math.

Recent changes are mixed: the four-school math average rose from 40% to 43%, while ELA slipped from 47% to 45%; among the three schools with science results in both years, the average fell from 51% to 43%. Prairie View High stands out for a 21-point math increase, from 22% to 43%, now slightly above the state. SchoolDigger’s latest rankings put the high school at the 71st percentile, the middle school at the 52nd, Parker at the 50th and Lacygne at the 40th. The elementary schools have similar student-teacher ratios—11.6 at Parker and 11.8 at Lacygne—and reported free/reduced-lunch rates of 55% and 51%, despite sharp differences in some grade-level results.