Iberville Charter Academy

Iberville Charter Academy in Plaquemine, LA, is a public charter school serving 513 students in grades PK through 8, where 69.2% of students qualify for free or reduced lunch, and it operates as its own single-school district.

Academically, the school is significantly underperforming compared to state averages, ranking in the bottom 20th percentile statewide and earning a 1-star rating. While the school has a favorable student-to-teacher ratio of 12.8:1—a major improvement from 29.9:1 just two years ago—this has not yet translated into higher test scores. A key concern is the steep decline in math proficiency as students get older, dropping from 54% in 6th grade to just 25% in 8th grade, a much sharper drop than at nearby South Baton Rouge Charter Academy. Social studies is also a weak spot, with only 33% proficiency compared to the state average of 55%. On a positive note, English Language Arts is the school's strongest subject, and in the 2023-2024 school year, its English I End-of-Course exam proficiency was 79%, well above the state average of 65%.

Compared to the closest traditional public school, Iberville Elementary School (just 1.05 miles away), Iberville Charter Academy lags in nearly every metric. Iberville Elementary has a higher state ranking (56th percentile vs. 17th), lower chronic absenteeism (12.1% vs. 23.4%), and much higher proficiency in math (73% vs. 41%) and social studies (51% vs. 33%). The charter school's chronic absenteeism rate has also been rising, from 15.7% in 2022-2023 to 23.4% in 2024-2025, which is now higher than many nearby schools like Lukeville Elementary (11.5%) and Great Hearts Harveston (10.7%). While the school has shown it can achieve high scores in specific areas, the overall pattern suggests that the charter model here is not currently providing a competitive advantage over the traditional public school option in the same community.