Original Research by School Decision on John F. Kennedy High School
John F. Kennedy High School is a charter high school in New Orleans that serves grades nine through twelve. It is part of the KIPP New Orleans network, a change that came in 2020 after a scandal under the previous operator. For a family exploring high schools in the city, this is a school that has been intentionally rebuilt around career-connected learning and college support, with a strong emphasis on post-secondary navigation.
The school is located on Paris Avenue in New Orleans, a dense, historic city that functions as a major port and commercial hub for the Gulf Coast. The city is known for its distinctive music, Creole cuisine, and annual festivals, most famously Mardi Gras, and has a defined downtown core anchored by the Superdome and the convention center, alongside separated campus areas like Uptown. Housing values in the area around the school are roughly in line with state benchmarks but below national averages, and rents have been essentially flat over the past year. The city has a complex post-Katrina recovery story, with population numbers that have rebounded from the catastrophic flooding but remain below pre-storm peaks, and concerns about gentrification have been part of the public conversation in redeveloping neighborhoods.
Enrollment at Kennedy is about what you would expect for a single-site urban high school in this setting. The student body is predominantly Black, with a much smaller share of Hispanic students, and very small numbers of white, Asian, and multiracial students. A substantial share of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, which is consistent with the economic context of the surrounding area. Data on students with disabilities and English learners was not reported, so a parent with a child in either category would need to ask the school directly about its services and staffing in those areas.
Academically, state testing data was not reported or available for this school, so there is no way to describe its performance on those assessments. This is a notable gap for any family weighing options, and a parent may want to ask the school how its students perform and what benchmarks are used internally. The absence of test results also means there is no proficiency index to place the school relative to other districts in Orleans Parish. Similarly, a four-year graduation rate was not available, which is another piece of information a prospective family would need to request from the school or the authorizer.
The school's program offerings are the centerpiece of what is publicly known. Under KIPP management, Kennedy has established structured career pathways in Business and Entrepreneurship, engineering, and robotics. It also offers a substantial number of Advanced Placement courses and an Alumni Teaching Force program, which is a pathway for students interested in becoming educators, providing hands-on teaching experience and a potential future role within KIPP. The KIPP Forward team is designed to support students for several years after graduation, helping with college and career navigation. These program elements represent the school's deliberate academic identity.
The school operates as a regular public charter school, meaning it is publicly funded but independently managed. Governance and leadership changes in 2020 fundamentally reset the school, so current families and staff have been operating under this model for several years now. The school's website is listed as kippneworleans.org, where families can find more detail on the specific course offerings, application timelines, and the career pathways.
For a parent or resident, this is a high school that presents a clear, stated mission around college and career readiness through programs and post-graduate support, set in a large, culturally rich city with a complex recent history. The missing state testing data and graduation rate make it difficult to assess academic performance through the usual public metrics, so a family will need to rely on information directly from the school and conversations with current families and staff to get a full picture of student outcomes.
See more original research from School Decision →