Ringgold High School

Ringgold High School is a small, rural public school in Bienville Parish, Louisiana, serving 219 students from 6th through 12th grade in a high-poverty area where nearly 80% of students qualify for free or reduced lunch. Once a 4-star school ranked in the 76th percentile in 2015-2016, it has experienced a steep decline to a 1-star school in the 12th percentile for the 2025-2026 school year, a stark contrast to nearby schools like Haughton High School and Lakeside Junior-Senior High School, which remain stable 4-star institutions in the 73rd and 74th percentiles.

Academic achievement at Ringgold is dramatically lower than its peers. In the 2025-2026 school year, only 30% of students were proficient in mathematics (compared to 70% at Lakeside), and 53% in English Language Arts (compared to 76% at Lakeside). End-of-course exams show even wider gaps: just 15% of Ringgold students were proficient in Algebra I, versus 69% at Haughton and 74% at Lakeside, while English II proficiency was 37% at Ringgold, less than half of Haughton’s 80% and Lakeside’s 84%. Chronic absenteeism is a critical issue, with a rate of 32.9%—significantly higher than the district (21.0%), state (22.5%), and nearby schools (Haughton at 29.1%, Lakeside at 29.6%).

Despite these challenges, Ringgold has shown flashes of success, such as a 69% proficiency rate in Biology in 2023-2024 (outperforming the district and state) and a 77% rate in Algebra I in 2022-2023. The school also boasts a high graduation rate of 90.9%, above the state average of 85.0%, though this contrasts sharply with low academic proficiency, raising questions about college and career readiness. The school’s low student-to-teacher ratio of 10.3:1 is a potential asset, but it has not been leveraged to overcome the combined impacts of high poverty and absenteeism, which contribute to systemic performance declines across all student groups.