The top reported proficiency rate is 9% in Math. The lowest is 7% in English language arts.
Original Research by School Decision on Clarendon High School
Clarendon High School serves grades seven through twelve in the county seat of Monroe County, a small Delta town that has been losing population for decades. Once a river port with a busy downtown, Clarendon now has a largely agricultural economy and most of its storefronts are shuttered. The town’s civic life centers on the Monroe County Courthouse square, and the school sits within that same compact footprint, not on a separated campus. The district employs many local residents alongside the city government and the Mid-Delta Health Center.
The school is a small one, with an enrollment that fits its grade band. Every student in the school qualifies for free or reduced-price meals, reflecting the economic circumstances of the community. The student body is predominantly Black, with a sizable white minority and smaller shares of Hispanic students and students who identify as two or more races. A small number of American Indian or Alaska Native students are also enrolled. The school does not serve an early childhood population, so state testing data is available only for grades seven and eight, the grades within the tested band that the school covers.
State assessment results from the most recent testing year show low proficiency rates. In seventh-grade math, a small share of students performed at the proficient level or above. In eighth-grade math, the share was lower still. In English language arts, the seventh-grade proficiency rate was low, and in eighth grade no students reached the proficient threshold. Science results followed the same pattern: a low proficiency rate in seventh grade and a negligible rate in eighth. Compared with other districts in Monroe County, the school’s overall proficiency index places it in the bottom quartile. A parent should expect that the academic pathway here may require close attention to foundational skills, and further inquiry with the school about how it supports students who are not yet meeting grade-level expectations would be reasonable.
No graduation rate was available in the data, and no information on chronic absenteeism was reported, so a parent cannot evaluate those outcomes from this source. Program offerings, such as Advanced Placement, career and technical education, or dual-credit courses, were not provided, so the breadth of the academic pathway beyond the core curriculum is unclear. The school’s website may carry this information. Special population counts for students with disabilities and English learners were also missing, so the extent of specialized support is not documented here. Discipline data and staffing ratios were absent as well.
The district has no recent parent-relevant changes on record beyond its basic accreditation data, so there is nothing to report about a new building, a boundary shift, or a program overhaul.
Clarendon High School operates in a community with a long, difficult pattern of economic contraction. Housing values and rents were not available, but the town’s population decline and shuttered downtown suggest a market under pressure. For a family considering this school, the central facts are a small, high-poverty student body, very low state test scores in the grades that are tested, and a town that offers few signs of residential or commercial growth. The school may be a fit for a family already rooted in Clarendon who values proximity and a familiar setting, but the academic numbers are weak, and the data leaves many questions about support services, programming, and postsecondary outcomes unanswered.
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