Best Public Schools in Zip Code 40210

ZIP code 40210 has two Jefferson County public schools in the data: Dr. William H. Perry Elementary School, serving kindergarten through grade 5, and Johnson Traditional Middle, serving grades 6–8. Both schools’ chronic absenteeism rates are high: 40% at Perry and 44% at Johnson, compared with 32% districtwide and 24% statewide. The clearest shared academic finding is that all 14 reported 2025–2026 subject-and-grade results are below both state and district benchmarks.

Neither school leads in a directly comparable test area, since they serve different grades. Perry’s highest reported result is grade 5 reading, at 21% proficient—30 points below the state’s 51%; its lowest is grade 5 writing, at 3%, 32 points below the state. Johnson’s highest is grade 6 reading, at 20%, 34 points below the state’s 54%; its lowest is grade 7 science, at 5%, 23 points below the state. Averaged across their seven reported results apiece, Johnson is 31 points below state benchmarks and Perry is 34 points below. SchoolDigger’s 2025–2026 rankings place both near the bottom statewide: Johnson ranked 323 of 326 schools and Perry 677 of 684, with each in the 1st percentile.

Recent matched results show different trends at the schools, while the combined average gap widened: Johnson’s average score fell from 18% to 13% between 2024–2025 and 2025–2026, and its average state gap widened from 26 to 30 points; Perry’s average rose from 9% to 11%, and its average gap narrowed from 35 to 34 points. Across the ten matched results, the average school-to-state gap widened from 29 to 32 points. Both schools remain in the lowest SchoolDigger ranking range; Johnson was in the 2nd percentile in the prior two years, while Perry was in the 0th percentile. In 2024–2025, free/reduced lunch eligible students accounted for 75% at Johnson and 91% at Perry, a 16-point difference; this is context, not an explanation for results. Enrollment was 516 at Johnson and 427 at Perry, with student–teacher ratios of 19.6 and 18.3, respectively. Because the schools test different grades, their scores are not direct school-to-school comparisons.