Pisgah High School, Pisgah AL - Test Scores & Data

Original Research by School Decision on Pisgah High School

Pisgah High School serves students from pre-kindergarten through twelfth grade in a single building in the small, rural town of Pisgah, Alabama, part of the Jackson County school system. The school’s enrollment is in the low hundreds, which is typical for a K-12 campus in a town that has seen a population decline in recent years. The student body is predominantly White, with a notable share of American Indian or Alaska Native students; other racial and ethnic groups are present in very small numbers. A substantial share of students qualify for free or reduced-price meals, reflecting the economic realities of the surrounding community, where employment is concentrated in education, healthcare, and manufacturing and where no large private employer dominates.

Academically, the picture is mixed and varies significantly by subject and grade level. In English language arts, the results are more encouraging. Across the tested grades, a majority of students met the state’s proficiency standard, with the highest performing grades seeing well over two-thirds of students reach that bar. This is a strength and suggests that, on the whole, literacy instruction is a reliable part of the school’s program. The same cannot be said for mathematics, where statewide assessment results are much softer. At every tested grade level, less than half of students scored proficient, and by eighth grade the figure dropped to a point that a parent will want to raise with the school. Science results, available for fourth and eighth grades, follow a similar pattern: the fourth-grade cohort performed moderately well, but the eighth-grade cohort was far weaker. Taken together, the school’s overall proficiency across all tested subjects and grades falls in the bottom quartile relative to other districts in Jackson County, a comparison that sets the school at the lower end among its local peers. Keep in mind that the district only contains two high schools, so the comparison group is small.

Because the school covers all grades in one building, the peer environment spans from young children to teenagers. This can be a desirable feature for families who want siblings on the same campus and a single school community through graduation, but it also means the social and academic setting changes dramatically as students move up. The school’s graduation rate was not available, so that measure cannot be assessed here. Data on special education services and English learner populations were also missing, as were discipline and staffing figures, making it difficult to evaluate how the school supports students with additional needs.

The town of Pisgah itself sits atop Sand Mountain and has a low-density, rural character with minimal walkability; daily life depends on driving. The housing market in the area is notably more affordable than the national and state benchmarks, with home values having declined in the most recent year. This makes the community an option for families seeking lower housing costs, but the town’s population has been declining and no major new development was found. The Jackson County district has been consolidating schools in recent years, a process that has closed some local high schools and redrawn attendance zones, a long-term structural shift that families should be aware of when considering their child’s educational pathway through graduation.

Pisgah High School offers a community-anchored, K-12 experience in a shrinking rural town. Its academic profile is led by a solid English language arts program, while math and science scores, particularly in the upper grades, are areas where a parent would want to understand more about the school’s curriculum, intervention strategies, and how the school is addressing them. For a family already in the area or considering a move for affordability, this is a school to approach with a clear set of questions about its plan for student progress in those subjects.

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Academic performance

State test results and graduation outcomes.

Graduation rate (ACGR)

>=90%Cohort of 59 students · Class of 2021

The federal source publishes a banded range instead of an exact rate when the graduating cohort is small enough that an exact number could risk identifying individual students.

How this school compares to all schools in this state

Each dot is one school’s SY 2020-21 graduation rate, binned by integer rate. Taller columns mean more schools at that rate. This school is highlighted.

373 schools plotted. 7 additional schools' rates are federally suppressed and not shown. Data: EDFacts SY 2020-21.

Math

Grade 333%

School 33% · District 47% · ▼ 14 pts below district

▼ 10 pts below state median · ▼ 12 pts below county median

Grade 439%

School 39% · District 43% · ▼ 3 pts below district

▲ 2 pts above state median · ▼ 4 pts below county median

Grade 532%

School 32% · District 40% · ▼ 8 pts below district

▼ 1 pts below state median · ▼ 4 pts below county median

Grade 650%

School 50% · District 42% · ▲ 8 pts above district

▲ 21 pts above state median · ▲ 12 pts above county median

Grade 725%

School 25% · District 29% · ▼ 4 pts below district

▲ 8 pts above state median · ▲ 1 pts above county median

Grade 815%

School 15% · District 29% · ▼ 14 pts below district

even with state median · ▼ 7 pts below county median

English language arts

Grade 358%

School 58% · District 72% · ▼ 13 pts below district

▼ 7 pts below state median · ▼ 13 pts below county median

Grade 463%

School 63% · District 63%

▲ 5 pts above state median · ▼ 4 pts below county median

Grade 568%

School 68% · District 72% · ▼ 3 pts below district

▲ 2 pts above state median · ▼ 3 pts below county median

Grade 673%

School 73% · District 64% · ▲ 8 pts above district

▲ 17 pts above state median · ▲ 8 pts above county median

Grade 752%

School 52% · District 63% · ▼ 11 pts below district

▼ 1 pts below state median · ▼ 13 pts below county median

Grade 868%

School 68% · District 62% · ▲ 6 pts above district

▲ 16 pts above state median · ▲ 3 pts above county median

Science

Grade 456%

School 56% · District 42% · ▲ 15 pts above district

▲ 18 pts above state median · ▲ 12 pts above county median

Grade 834%

School 34% · District 38% · ▼ 4 pts below district

▼ 1 pts below state median · ▼ 7 pts below county median

This schoolJackson County, same grade

Graduation rate (ACGR) reflects the federally published Adjusted Cohort Graduation Rate for the most recent year available. We refresh this data annually at the close of each academic year in June. The federal source publishes a banded rate (for example, "90-94%") instead of an exact number for cohorts small enough to risk identifying individual students. The state distribution chart, where shown, plots every school in the state with a published rate or band; schools whose rate is federally suppressed are excluded. Where the federal source publishes a band rather than an exact rate, the school is placed within its band using a stable, ID-derived offset, so its position is consistent across visits.