Summary:
The four public schools in the Caldwell Parish school district serve 1,098 students in Columbia, Louisiana, a small town where the district ranks in the bottom quarter of the state and faces significant challenges with poverty and chronic absenteeism.
Caldwell Parish Junior High School is the district's academic leader, earning a 3-star rating and achieving standout results in English Language Arts, where 66% of students are proficient—close to the state average—and a perfect 100% proficiency on the Algebra I End-of-Course exam. In contrast, Columbia Elementary School has experienced a dramatic collapse, falling from a 5-star, top-10% school just four years ago to a 1-star, bottom-20% school today, with the lowest proficiency rates in the district (45% in Math, 39% in ELA). Caldwell Parish High School is the district's weakest link, never exceeding a 2-star rating and consistently scoring below state averages, especially in U.S. History (34% vs. 55% state) and Geometry (37% vs. 57% state). Meanwhile, Union Central Elementary School is a quiet success story, maintaining a stable 2-star rating for three years and being the only school to meet or exceed state averages in any subject (60% Math proficiency).
A systemic crisis across all schools is chronic absenteeism, with every school exceeding the state average of 22.5%, and the high school's rate alarmingly high at 34.9%. All schools also face high economic disadvantage, with free or reduced lunch eligibility ranging from 63.57% to 78.53%. Despite these challenges, both the high school and junior high reported a 0.0% dropout rate in 2023-2024, far better than the state average of 3.1%, and all schools maintain favorable student-teacher ratios between 9.6:1 and 11.2:1.
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