The top reported proficiency rate is 41% in English language arts. The lowest is 11% in Math.
Original Research by School Decision on Dothan Preparatory Academy
Dothan Preparatory Academy is a regular public school in Dothan, Alabama, serving only seventh and eighth grades. It is part of the Dothan City district. The school sits on South Oates Street in a city that functions as a regional commercial and transportation hub for southeastern Alabama, southwest Georgia, and the Florida Panhandle, with an economy built around healthcare, poultry processing, and manufacturing. Dothan is car-dependent and low-density, with a downtown core that holds civic anchors like the Wiregrass Museum of Art and the National Peanut Festival fairgrounds.
The academy enrolls a large student body for a two-grade school, with a substantial majority of students qualifying for free or reduced-price lunch. In terms of racial composition, the student body is predominantly Black, with a substantial White minority and a smaller share of Hispanic students. Data on the share of students with Individualized Education Programs and English learners was not available. Because the school serves only middle grades, there is no graduation rate to report; that metric applies to high schools.
On state assessments administered through the Alabama Comprehensive Assessment Program, proficiency rates are low in mathematics, with roughly one in nine students scoring proficient in each of the two grades tested. English language arts proficiency is higher, approaching two in five students. In science, tested only in eighth grade, about one in four students met the proficiency bar. Overall, across all tested subjects and grades, the school’s proficiency index places it in the bottom quartile relative to districts in Houston County. Only a single year of assessment data was available, so there is no trend to describe.
The comparison set here is limited: only two of the three districts in Houston County had proficiency data reported, and the academy’s performance sits below the midpoint of that small cohort. A parent looking at these results will see that the school’s math scores are a particular soft spot and may want to ask what supports are in place for students who are not yet at grade level.
Chronic absenteeism data was not reported. Discipline, course access, and staffing information were also absent from the available records, so a fuller picture of daily conditions inside the school is not possible from this data alone.
Dothan Preparatory Academy provides a middle-school education in a city that has grown steadily over the past century, with affordable housing and a pro-business tax climate. The district itself had no recent policy changes, curriculum shifts, or referendums of note that surfaced in publicly available searches. For families, this school offers a focused two-year span before high school, with a student body that is economically diverse in the sense that a large share comes from lower-income households. The academic challenge, particularly in math, is evident from the assessment outcomes, and that is something a family would want to investigate directly with the school to understand how it is being addressed. The school’s size and grade structure mean it is a transitional environment, not a K-12 or elementary setting, so the peer group is entirely adolescents in those two grades.
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