Schools in Monroe, LA

The 35 public schools in Monroe, Louisiana, serve students from pre-kindergarten through 12th grade across five districts, including the urban City of Monroe School District and the suburban Ouachita Parish School District, revealing a landscape of stark contrasts where high-performing magnet and suburban schools coexist with deeply challenged, high-poverty urban schools.

The top performers are clear standouts. Sterlington High School leads all high schools, ranking in the 96th percentile with a 0% dropout rate and exceptional test scores, while J.S. Clark Magnet Elementary School achieves a 95th percentile ranking with 94% ELA proficiency despite a 71.62% poverty rate. In contrast, the most challenged schools face critical needs: Carroll High School ranks in the 8th percentile with an 80.1% graduation rate and 49.4% chronic absenteeism, while Berg Jones Elementary School has the city's highest poverty rate at 98.48% and ranks in the 2nd percentile. The district performance gap is significant, with Ouachita Parish ranking in the 67th percentile statewide compared to the City of Monroe's 22nd percentile.

Key metrics reveal a strong correlation between poverty and performance, with schools above 90% poverty consistently ranking in the bottom 10-20% of the state. Chronic absenteeism is a crisis in certain schools, with Carroll Junior High School at 53.2% and Wossman High School at 42.5%, while top performers like J.S. Clark (5.4%) and Lexington Elementary School (9.3%) have very low rates. A troubling feeder pattern exists from Berg Jones to Carroll Junior High to Carroll High, representing a concentrated zone of educational crisis. The magnet school effect at J.S. Clark proves that specialized programs can overcome socioeconomic barriers, and the stark contrast between Neville High School (62nd percentile, 61% poverty) and Wossman High (34th percentile, 90% poverty) within the same district highlights how neighborhood demographics and school culture create vastly different outcomes.