Summary:
The Rusk Independent School District (Isd) is served by a single high school, Rusk High School, which enrolls 621 students in grades 9 through 12. This school provides a comprehensive look at the district's secondary education, offering a mix of notable strengths and significant challenges that parents should carefully consider.
Rusk High School shows a clear split in academic performance. The school excels in humanities, consistently outperforming the state average in English II Reading (66.27% proficient vs. 59.88% state) and U.S. History (72.39% proficient vs. 70.17% state). However, it struggles dramatically in STEM subjects, particularly Algebra I, where only 31.09% of students are proficient—a staggering 23 percentage points below the state average. Biology scores (60.9%) also fall short of the state mark (70.51%). This contrast creates a "tale of two subjects" where the school's overall state ranking has improved for three straight years (now at the 50th percentile), yet its math performance remains a critical weakness.
Despite the low test scores in core subjects, the school boasts an excellent graduation rate of 97.7% and a very low dropout rate of 0.6%. With a student-teacher ratio of 13.8:1 and spending of $11,859 per student, the school has reasonable resources. The key takeaway for parents is that while Rusk High School successfully graduates nearly all its students and shows strength in reading and history, the severe underperformance in Algebra I and Biology suggests that the instructional strategies in math and science may need significant improvement to ensure students are fully prepared for college-level coursework.
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