Summary:
The five schools in Jefferson, Louisiana, serve students from pre-kindergarten through 12th grade within the Jefferson Parish school district, with the exception of JCFA-East, which operates as its own district, and together they enroll 2,830 students across two elementary and three high schools.
Dr. John Ochsner Discovery Health Sciences Academy is the standout performer, achieving proficiency rates of 72% in math and 78% in English Language Arts—far exceeding district and state averages—while maintaining a low chronic absenteeism rate of 7.3% and a student-teacher ratio of 12.7:1. In contrast, JCFA-East faces severe challenges, with a graduation rate of only 26.1%, a dropout rate of 22.3%, and a chronic absenteeism rate of 81.5%, placing it in the bottom 1% of Louisiana districts. Riverdale High School shows a mixed profile: it boasts an 88.9% graduation rate and a low 1.3% dropout rate, but its test scores are inconsistent, with strong results in Geometry and English II but weaker performance in Algebra I and English I. Jefferson Virtual High School has seen its state ranking drop from the 89th to the 54th percentile over two years, despite a very low student-teacher ratio of 3.9:1 and low chronic absenteeism of 10.8%.
The data reveals a strong link between chronic absenteeism and academic performance, with schools like Jefferson School (23.1% absenteeism) and Riverdale High School (24.7% absenteeism) performing below state averages. Socioeconomic factors also play a role, as the two schools with the highest free/reduced lunch rates—Jefferson School at 73.18% and JCFA-East at 82.47%—are the lowest-performing. Overall, Dr. John Ochsner Discovery Health Sciences Academy serves as a model of success within the district, while JCFA-East requires urgent intervention to address its crisis-level absenteeism and low achievement.
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