Summary:
Zip code 70053 in Gretna, Louisiana, is home to two high schools within the Jefferson Parish school district, serving grades 6 through 12, and they represent a dramatic contrast in academic performance and school mission.
The standout school is Thomas Jefferson High School for Advanced Studies, a magnet-style school that has risen to become the #1 ranked high school in the entire state. It achieves near-perfect proficiency rates (99-100%) in all core subjects like Math, ELA, and Biology, and boasts a 94% graduation rate with a 0% dropout rate. In stark contrast, Young Audiences Charter High School is a larger school with a 2-star rating and a state rank of 207. While its academic proficiency rates are low—with only 31% of students proficient in U.S. History—it presents a paradox by maintaining a very high graduation rate of 91.2% and an extremely low dropout rate of 0.5%, suggesting it successfully retains students even if it struggles to bring them to grade-level mastery.
Key metrics highlight the divide: chronic absenteeism is 7.3% at Thomas Jefferson but double that at Young Audiences (14.3%), and the poverty rate is 51% at the top-ranked school versus 86% at the charter school. Despite these challenges, Young Audiences outperforms the district average in Geometry and English II. For parents, the choice is clear: Thomas Jefferson offers an elite, highly selective academic environment with consistent excellence, while Young Audiences provides a more inclusive setting that prioritizes keeping students in school and graduating them, even as it works to improve academic outcomes.
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