Middle Schools in Washington Parish

The two middle-level schools in the Washington Parish school district, Franklinton Elementary School (grades 4-6) and Franklinton Junior High School (grades 7-8), serve a combined 701 students in a district ranked 64th out of 116 in Louisiana, with both schools facing high economic need as indicated by free/reduced lunch rates above 73%.

Franklinton Junior High School stands out as the stronger performer, exceeding district and state averages in English Language Arts (74% proficiency) and Social Studies (54% proficiency), while also maintaining a very low dropout rate of just 0.9% compared to the district and state average of 3.1%. In contrast, Franklinton Elementary School struggles across all subjects, with its 4th-grade cohort being a bright spot—outperforming district and state averages in both Math (64%) and ELA (73%)—but performance drops sharply in 5th grade, particularly in Math (falling from 64% to 40%). A key concern is that chronic absenteeism at the junior high is 26.4%, higher than the district (23.4%) and state (22.5%) averages, which could threaten its academic success despite its current strong results.

Social Studies is a district-wide weakness, with both schools falling below the state average of 55%, though Franklinton Junior High nearly matches it at 54% while Franklinton Elementary lags at 38%. Despite similar poverty levels, the junior high achieves above-average results in ELA and Social Studies, suggesting effective practices that could be studied and potentially applied at the elementary level to improve overall outcomes in the district.