Summary:
In zip code 70817 (Baton Rouge, LA), there are two elementary schools serving grades PK-5: Woodlawn Elementary and Shenandoah Elementary School, both part of the East Baton Rouge Parish school district.
Shenandoah Elementary School is the standout school in this area, ranking in the top 15% of Louisiana elementary schools (86th percentile for 2025-2026) and showing a strong upward trend from the 80th percentile in 2023-2024. It consistently outperforms Woodlawn Elementary across nearly every academic metric, including higher proficiency rates in Math (78% vs. 76%), ELA (87% vs. 79%), and Social Studies (69% vs. 59%) for the 2025-2026 school year. Shenandoah also boasts a significantly lower chronic absenteeism rate (10.6% vs. 16.9%), which is well below both the district average of 30.5% and the state average of 22.5%. Both schools serve similar demographics, with high free/reduced lunch percentages (64.38% at Shenandoah and 68.39% at Woodlawn) and nearly identical student-teacher ratios (13:1 and 13.2:1), suggesting the performance gap is driven by factors like instructional quality or school culture rather than poverty or class size.
Both schools are strong outperformers relative to their district, which has a low 2-star rating. For example, Woodlawn's ELA proficiency (79%) is 15 points higher than the district average (64%), and Shenandoah's (87%) is 23 points higher. Notably, Woodlawn showed a significant 9-point improvement in Math proficiency from 67% to 76% between 2024-2025 and 2025-2026, while Shenandoah's Math proficiency decreased slightly from 81% to 78% over the same period. Shenandoah's academic excellence is consistent across all grades, with particularly strong 5th-grade scores: 84% in Math, 94% in ELA, and 81% in Social Studies, indicating a sustained high-quality educational experience from PK through 5th grade.
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