The top reported proficiency rate is 60% in English language arts. The lowest is 35% in Science.
Original Research by School Decision on Ladonia Elementary School
Ladonia Elementary School, a regular public school serving pre-kindergarten through fifth grade, operates in Phenix City, Alabama, as part of the Russell County school district. Phenix City sits on the west bank of the Chattahoochee River directly across from Columbus, Georgia, functioning as a residential and commercial counterpart to its larger neighbor. The school draws from a community that has a mix of residential neighborhoods, riverfront amenities, and commercial corridors along major U.S. highways. The city has been recognized as an affordable suburb, and housing values in the area sit well below both state and national benchmarks, with rents also lower than the national index, reinforcing that this is a relatively affordable housing market for families.
The school’s enrollment is moderate for an elementary building serving these grade levels. The student body is predominantly white, with a substantial share of Black students and smaller shares of Hispanic students and students of two or more races. A large majority of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, indicating a high level of economic need across the school population. Data on special education identification and English learner status were not available in the provided records, so those dimensions of student support are not possible to assess here.
On the 2024-25 state assessments, Ladonia Elementary shows a clear and mixed academic picture. In English language arts, performance is relatively strong in third grade, where a sizable majority of students met proficiency. The rate drops in fourth grade and declines further in fifth grade, where just under half of students scored proficient. This pattern, a decline from the early tested grade to the upper elementary grade, is one a parent may want to discuss with the school to understand how literacy instruction progresses across grade levels. In mathematics, the trajectory is steeper. A majority of third graders were proficient, but that share falls sharply in fourth grade and again in fifth grade, where fewer than one in five students met the bar. Science is tested only in fourth grade, and about a third of students reached proficiency there. Across all tested subjects and grades, the school’s overall proficiency index places it in the top quartile relative to the two districts in Russell County, meaning its combined performance is the strongest in that small comparison set. However, the low fourth- and fifth-grade math results are a soft spot, and the declining trend in reading from third to fifth grade also merits a closer look.
Because the available testing data covers only one school year, year-to-year trend comparisons are not possible. This single snapshot means a parent cannot tell from these records alone whether current scores represent an improvement or a decline.
The school’s setting in Phenix City provides a community with several anchors. The city has a riverfront with a river walk and an amphitheater, a downtown civic core, and multiple bridges connecting to Columbus, Georgia. Proximity to Fort Moore, a major military installation just across the river, shapes the local economy. The Russell County school district, for its part, appears to have made little that is publicly reported in the way of recent district-level changes or strategic priorities, so the context for Ladonia Elementary within the district is largely defined by the school’s own data and the community it serves.
This is a school with a clear strength in early elementary English language arts, a sharp challenge in upper-elementary mathematics, and a high-need student population. A parent considering this school will want to understand how the school supports students who are not yet proficient in math by fifth grade, what interventions exist for reading as students move beyond third grade, and how the school’s economic context shapes classroom resources and expectations.
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