Summary:
The San Augustine Independent School District (Isd) is served by a single high school, San Augustine High School, a small rural campus with 320 students in grades 6 through 12. This school presents a stark paradox: it achieves a perfect 100% graduation rate and an excellent student-teacher ratio of 9.4 to 1, yet its academic performance on state tests is among the lowest in Texas, ranking in the bottom 10-18% of all high schools statewide over the last three years.
The most critical finding is the "Graduation vs. Proficiency" gap. While nearly every student graduates, a vast majority are not mastering core subjects. For the 2025-2026 school year, only 2.38% of 8th graders were proficient in math, and just 19.61% met the standard in English I Reading—both dramatically below state averages. This raises serious questions about whether graduates are truly prepared for college or careers. The school also faces the challenge of high poverty, with over 80% of students economically disadvantaged, which is strongly linked to lower test scores. Despite spending $16,276 per student, the small class size advantage is not translating into academic gains, suggesting deeper issues with curriculum or instructional quality.
There is one notable bright spot: in the 2024-2025 school year, 8th-grade math proficiency hit 45.45%, exceeding the state average. However, this was followed by a plunge to 2.38% the next year, highlighting extreme year-over-year volatility. With such a small student body, the performance of a single cohort can dramatically swing the school's overall statistics, making it difficult to identify stable trends. For parents, this means the school excels at keeping students on track to graduate, but the data strongly suggests that academic rigor and student preparedness for life after high school are significant concerns that require close attention.
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