Summary:
Tensas High School is the sole high school in Tensas Parish, serving grades 6 through 12 with 147 students in Saint Joseph, Louisiana. The school operates with a very low student-teacher ratio of 8.6:1, which allows for small class sizes, and serves a community where 94.56% of students qualify for free or reduced lunch, indicating high economic need.
Academically, the school shows a mixed performance. A standout strength is English I, where 63% of students achieved proficiency in the 2025-2026 school year, just 3 points below the state average. However, Geometry proficiency is critically low at only 5%, compared to the state average of 57%. Overall, English Language Arts proficiency across all grades is 55% (state: 70%), while Social Studies (18%) and Mathematics (34%) lag significantly behind state averages. The graduation rate is solid at 85.7%, slightly above the state average, and the dropout rate is impressively low at 1.1%.
The most concerning issue is chronic absenteeism, which stands at 39.9%—nearly double the state average of 22.5%. This high rate of missed school days likely drives the low test scores, despite the advantage of small classes. The school’s state ranking has improved slightly, moving from the 8th percentile in 2023-2024 to the 12th percentile in 2025-2026. For parents, the key takeaway is that while the school offers strong English instruction and keeps students enrolled, chronic absenteeism and weak performance in math and social studies are critical challenges that need attention.
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