Original Research by School Decision on Mcdonogh 35 Senior High School
McDonogh 35 Senior High School, a New Orleans public high school serving grades nine through twelve, operates as a single-school district. The school has an enrollment in the high hundreds, with each grade level from ninth through twelfth containing a similar number of students, indicating a stable cohort that moves through together. The student body is overwhelmingly Black, with a small Hispanic population and a very small number of white students and students of two or more races. Information on the share of students qualifying for free or reduced-price lunch, students with disabilities, and English learners was not available, so a parent may want to ask the school directly about those support structures.
Academic performance data is absent. No state test results for the school were reported in the available data, nor were any graduation rates. Because McDonogh 35 serves high school grades, the missing testing data is not explained by an untested grade band. A parent should consider this a significant gap and seek the school’s most recent state report card or school performance score directly from the Louisiana Department of Education. The absence of a reported graduation rate is similarly unresolved.
Chronic absenteeism is a clear soft spot. The school’s rate of chronic absenteeism falls in the bottom quartile among Orleans Parish’s districts. This means a substantial share of students miss enough school to affect their learning, and the figure is higher than the median peer district. Given the importance of daily attendance to high school course credit and graduation, a parent may want to ask about the school’s attendance interventions and early-warning systems.
On spending, the school’s per-pupil current expenditure sits in the upper half of the middle range among the parish’s districts. This places it near the median in terms of financial resources.
No information on program offerings, such as Advanced Placement courses, dual enrollment, career and technical education pathways, or extracurriculars, was provided. Similarly, the data did not include details on the school’s governance, such as whether it operates under a charter or is a magnet school, nor did it include a locale brief describing the surrounding neighborhood. A search for recent district changes turned up historical and enrollment data but no parent-relevant developments from the recent period that would meet the bar for inclusion. A parent will need to rely on the school’s own website and direct outreach to understand what academic pathways and campus culture are on offer.
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