Summary:
The two public schools in Ringgold, Louisiana, part of the Bienville Parish school district, serve grades PK-12 and face significant challenges, though they present very different pictures of academic health. Ringgold Elementary School (grades PK-5) is a relative bright spot, with proficiency rates in Math (47%), ELA (66%), and Social Studies (44%) that are closer to state averages, and it even outperforms the state in 4th-grade ELA (75% vs. 72%). In stark contrast, Ringgold High School (grades 6-12) is in academic crisis, earning a 1-star rating and ranking in the bottom 12% of Louisiana high schools, with critically low scores on end-of-course exams like Algebra I (15% proficient vs. 65% state).
The most dramatic difference between the two schools is chronic absenteeism. At the elementary level, it is a low 16.2%, but upon entering the high school, it more than doubles to 32.9%, a rate far exceeding both the district (21.0%) and state (22.5%) averages. This disengagement is a primary driver of the high school's poor performance, and the data reveals a sharp academic decline during the middle school years (grades 6-8), with 8th-grade math proficiency plummeting to just 18%. Despite both schools having excellent student-teacher ratios (10.3:1 at the high school and 7.8:1 at the elementary school), the high school's core issues appear rooted in student engagement and instructional quality rather than class size.
While Ringgold High School's graduation rate of 90.9% is above the state average of 85.0%, this statistic masks a "diploma gap" where students are being pushed through without mastering academic content. The elementary school, meanwhile, has seen its state ranking drop from the 56th to the 34th percentile, indicating it is not immune to challenges. For parents, the data suggests that while the elementary school offers a solid foundation, the transition to the high school represents a steep cliff in both attendance and academic achievement that requires immediate and targeted intervention.
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