Summary:
Lake County Schools is a small Tennessee district with three schools serving roughly 743 students across grades PK-12, and it ranks 138 out of 141 districts in the state. Students progress from Margaret Newton Elementary School (PK–2) to Lara Kendall Elementary School (3–8) and finally to Lake County High School (9–12). The district sits in the 2nd percentile overall, with zero stars, indicating severe underperformance relative to state averages.
Among the three schools, Lake County High School stands out for both strengths and weaknesses. It is the only school with any above-state proficiency rates: English II hit 59.1% versus the state’s 58.1%, and 12th-grade U.S. History reached 41.2% versus 36.0%. Its state rank jumped from the 6th percentile to the 25th percentile in one year. However, only 5.4% of 9th graders were proficient in Algebra I and 10.2% in English I. Lara Kendall Elementary has the district’s best attendance, with chronic absenteeism at 10.8% versus the district’s 15.6%, and its strongest subject is social studies (37.3% proficiency). Margaret Newton serves the youngest students and has no state test scores but spends the most per student at $15,553.
The district’s biggest academic concerns are math and science: Lara Kendall’s science proficiency is just 15.3%, a 31.6-point gap from the state, and high school Algebra I trails by 20.7 points. Internal gaps are stark—English II proficiency is nearly six times higher than English I. The graduation rate is 84.8%, below the state’s 90.5%, though the dropout rate of 4.3% is better than the state’s 6.7%. Despite high per-student spending, achievement remains low, suggesting that funding alone is not enough. With students moving from PK–2 to 3–8 to high school, early academic struggles appear to carry forward, making targeted instructional support and readiness critical for improvement.
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