Summary
Lucille Nesom Memorial in Tickfaw, LA, is a small, rural elementary school serving 414 students in grades PK through 8 within the Tangipahoa Parish school district, where over 80% of students come from economically disadvantaged backgrounds. The school has faced significant challenges, ranking in the bottom 20% of Louisiana elementary schools for the past decade and recently dropping to a 0-star rating, with only 38% of students proficient in Math and 54% in ELA for the 2025-2026 school year—well below state averages of 62% and 70%. In comparison, nearby schools like Albany Upper Elementary School in the higher-performing Livingston Parish district achieve dramatically better results, with 74% Math and 80% ELA proficiency, despite serving a similar percentage of economically disadvantaged students.
A standout bright spot is the school's exceptional performance in 7th and 8th grades, where it often outperforms the district. In 7th grade, students achieved 54% proficiency in Math (beating the district average of 50%) and an impressive 71% in Social Studies (far exceeding the district's 43% and state's 57%). In 8th grade, ELA proficiency reached 65%, surpassing the district's 58% and nearly matching the state's 69%. This suggests that upper-grade teachers or curriculum are particularly effective, though the school struggles with a "valley of death" in 5th and 6th grades, where Math proficiency drops to 26% and 41%, respectively. Additionally, the school has historically excelled with English Language Learner (ELL) students, who ranked in the 76th percentile statewide in 2021-2022, earning a 4-star rating.
A critical concern is the school's extremely high chronic absenteeism rate of 35.4% for the 2024-2025 school year, significantly higher than the district average of 30.5% and the state average of 22.5%, and far above nearby schools like Hammond Eastside Magnet (25.6%) and D.C. Reeves Elementary School (24.2%). While the school boasts a 0.0% dropout rate, this metric is less meaningful for a PK-8 school, and the high absenteeism is a strong predictor of future dropout risk. The student-teacher ratio has also fluctuated wildly, from 20.6:1 in 2023-2024 to 10.2:1 in 2024-2025, suggesting potential staffing instability. The school's path to improvement likely lies in replicating the successful strategies used in its upper grades and for ELL students, while aggressively tackling chronic absenteeism.
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