Summary:
In zip code 70510, there is one middle school, J.H. Williams Middle School, serving grades 6 through 8 in Abbeville, Louisiana, with a total enrollment of 374 students.
J.H. Williams Middle School is part of the Vermilion Parish school district, which is a high-performing district ranked in the top 12% of Louisiana. However, the school itself is struggling significantly, ranking in the bottom third of all middle schools in the state and showing a concerning decline from the 32nd percentile in 2023-2024 to the 24th percentile in 2025-2026. The most critical issue is an alarmingly high chronic absenteeism rate of 43.3%, nearly double the district average of 27.9% and the state average of 22.5%. This likely drives the school's low academic performance, as test scores in English Language Arts (65% proficient), Mathematics (45%), and Social Studies (32%) all fall well below both district and state averages. The largest gaps are in Math and Social Studies, where the school trails the district by 32 percentage points in each subject.
A notable pattern is a sharp academic decline in 7th grade, with Social Studies proficiency dropping from 36% in 6th grade to just 19%, and Math falling from 57% to 42%. While the school has a positive low dropout rate of 1.0% compared to the state's 3.1%, the high chronic absenteeism creates a "present but absent" problem where students remain enrolled but do not attend regularly. With 81.55% of students receiving free or reduced lunch, the school faces significant challenges tied to poverty. The most urgent need is a targeted initiative to combat chronic absenteeism, especially before the 7th-grade slump, as academic improvement will remain difficult without addressing this core issue.
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