Summary:
The city of Franklin, Louisiana, is served by five schools—two elementary, one middle, one high, and one alternative school—spanning grades PK-12, with a total enrollment of 1,445 students across the St. Mary Parish School District and the independent V. B. Glencoe Charter School.
The most striking finding is that V. B. Glencoe Charter School, an alternative school, is the clear academic leader in Franklin. It is the only school where proficiency rates in Math (77%), English Language Arts (84%), and Social Studies (64%) exceed both district and state averages, and it boasts a strong graduation rate of 87.5% with a 0% dropout rate. In contrast, the four St. Mary Parish schools face significant challenges. Franklin Senior High School struggles with a chronic absenteeism rate of 36.1%, the highest in the city, and has held a 1-star state ranking for three consecutive years. Franklin Junior High School shows a declining trajectory, dropping from the 36th to the 12th percentile in state rankings, though it achieved a remarkable 100% proficiency in Algebra I in 2024-2025. The elementary schools, W.P. Foster Elementary School and LaGrange Elementary School, also report high chronic absenteeism rates above 30%, indicating attendance problems start early.
Key metrics reveal a city-wide crisis in Social Studies, with the four St. Mary Parish schools averaging just 26% proficiency compared to the state average of 55%. Economic disadvantage is pervasive, with an average free/reduced lunch rate of 93.1% across these district schools. The data clearly separates Franklin into two performance groups: the high-performing V. B. Glencoe Charter School and the struggling St. Mary Parish schools, which share similar demographics and face common challenges like low test scores and high absenteeism. This suggests that district-level policies may not be effectively overcoming the barriers associated with high poverty, making V. B. Glencoe's success a potential model for improvement.
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