The top reported proficiency rate is 27% in English language arts. The lowest is 3% in Science.
Original Research by School Decision on Girard Primary School
Girard Primary School serves kindergarten through second grade in Dothan, Alabama, as part of the Dothan City district. Because the school only covers the early elementary grades, there is no graduation rate to report, and state testing data is available for grades three, four, and five elsewhere in the district, not for the grades this school actually teaches. The testing results that do appear under this school’s profile belong to grade levels the building does not serve, so the most straightforward read of this school is that its academic accountability measure is not generated from its own students; a parent would need to look at the elementary school these children feed into for a picture of later-year proficiency.
The student body is large for a primary school serving only three grades. Nearly all students come from households that qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, which places the school in a high-poverty context. The racial composition is predominantly Black, with a much smaller white enrollment and modest shares of Hispanic students and students identifying as two or more races. Data on students with disabilities and English learners was not available in the profile.
Dothan itself is a regional commercial hub for southeastern Alabama, known for peanut processing and manufacturing tied to Sony, Michelin, and General Electric. Healthcare, poultry processing, and a nearby military installation also anchor the local economy. The city has grown steadily, and the official city messaging emphasizes affordable housing and low property taxes. The built environment is low-density and car-dependent, with a downtown core that has civic and cultural anchors like the Wiregrass Museum of Art and the National Peanut Festival fairgrounds, but schools and higher education campuses are spread across separated sites. The Dothan City school district did not show up in the search as having had any recent curriculum overhauls, property tax changes, or other parent-relevant shifts.
Comparing the school’s tested performance against other schools in Houston County, the overall proficiency index across subjects and grades falls in the bottom quartile. The proficiency rates for math and science are very low, and while English language arts rates are higher, they still remain well below the midpoint among county peers. Parent should be aware that these results come from grades three through five, which is not the population Girard Primary directly instructs, and that a school serving only kindergarten through second grade typically focuses on foundational literacy and numeracy skills rather than the grade-level content assessed on state exams. Still, the pattern suggests that students arriving at this school’s feeder elementary face considerable academic challenges.
No information was available on the school’s discipline rates, staffing ratios, course access, or attendance patterns. The school is a regular public school, not a charter or magnet. It did not report a Title I status, though the income data strongly indicates it would qualify. The overall picture is of a high-poverty early primary school in a growing Sun Belt city, where the academic results from later grades are weak, and the trajectory of student learning beyond second grade merits close attention from families who are weighing this neighborhood path.
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