Best Public Schools in Jeanerette, LA

The city of Jeanerette, Louisiana, is home to three public schools serving students from Pre-Kindergarten through 12th grade, all characterized by very high levels of economic disadvantage, with free and reduced lunch rates above 87%.

For parents, the standout academic performer is St. Charles Street Elementary School, the only school in the city to earn a 3-star rating. It excels in Mathematics, with 73% of students proficient, far outpacing the state average of 62%. However, it struggles in English Language Arts, where only 63% of students are proficient, well below the state average. In contrast, Jeanerette Senior High School faces significant academic challenges, consistently earning a 2-star rating and scoring below district and state averages in nearly every subject, particularly Social Studies (37% proficient). Despite this, the high school boasts a strong graduation rate of 90.8%, creating a notable gap between graduation and academic proficiency. The Chitimacha Tribal School is a unique outlier; as a tribal school under the Chitimacha Tribal School district, it does not report state test scores or rankings, making direct academic comparison impossible. It is the smallest school (110 students) and has the highest rate of economic disadvantage at 97.27%.

Key takeaways include a "Math vs. ELA" paradox at St. Charles Elementary, where math proficiency is a strength but reading lags. At Jeanerette High, a very low student-teacher ratio of 8.1 does not translate into higher test scores, suggesting systemic challenges beyond class size. Furthermore, while both schools in the highly-rated Iberia Parish district (4 stars) share the same district, their outcomes are vastly different, with the elementary school performing well and the high school struggling. Chronic absenteeism is a concern at the high school (24.1%), while the elementary school is below the state average (19.6%).