The top reported proficiency rate is 44% in English language arts. The lowest is 27% in Science.
Original Research by School Decision on W. T. Henning Elementary School
W. T. Henning Elementary School is a regular public school in Sulphur, Louisiana, serving students from prekindergarten through fifth grade as part of the Calcasieu Parish school system. Sulphur is a mid-sized city with a strong industrial base tied to oil refineries and petrochemical plants, including a major Citgo refinery and a Sasol facility. The city’s residential neighborhoods include older areas like Maplewood, originally built for refinery workers, and newer development concentrated south of town and around Interstate 10. Population growth has been modest, and the economy remains heavily dependent on this industrial sector.
Henning Elementary is one of several elementary schools feeding into the district’s middle and high schools. The school has a sizable enrollment for an elementary building serving this grade band. The student body is predominantly white, with a substantial Hispanic population and smaller shares of students who are Black, Asian, or of two or more races. A majority of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, indicating that the school serves a population with significant economic need. Data on the share of students with disabilities or those who are English learners was not available, which is a gap a parent may want to explore with the school.
The school’s academic performance on Louisiana’s LEAP 2025 assessments provides a mixed picture. In English language arts, something over two in five students scored at the proficient level or above. In math, the share was just below that mark. Science proficiency was lower, with more than one in four students reaching the same bar. Social studies proficiency fell approximately in the middle of these results. These figures are from a single school year, so no trend is yet available. Compared with other schools within Calcasieu Parish, Henning Elementary’s overall proficiency across tested subjects sits above the midpoint among those for which data was available, which is a useful reference point for a parent trying to understand how this school stacks up locally.
The data suggests that for a family considering this school, the academic picture is one where a solid share of students meet state standards in reading and math, but a meaningful portion do not, and science is a particular area where proficiency is lower. A parent might want to ask the school specifically about how it supports students who are not yet at grade level in reading and math, and what science instruction looks like in the early grades.
The district context matters here. Calcasieu Parish voters recently renewed property tax millages that fund teacher salaries and school operations, which secures ongoing resources for staffing. The district has also implemented a districtwide literacy initiative over recent years, focused on structured literacy and reading intervention, which won a recognition. This suggests a system-level commitment to improving reading outcomes that directly affects all elementary schools, including Henning. Additionally, the district passed a large budget driven by FEMA rebuilding funds following significant hurricane damage, funding major construction and renovation of school facilities. This means that while the physical plant may have been upgraded, it also indicates a recent history of disruption from natural disasters that families moving to the area may want to consider.
Housing in Sulphur’s market is moderately priced relative to national benchmarks, and rents have been rising. The typical commute is by car, and the city’s layout is oriented around automobile travel.
For a parent, this is a school that serves a largely working-class community, where state test results are around the middle of the local pack but with clear room for improvement in science. The district has recently invested in literacy and secured its tax base, which are positive structural signals. A parent whose child needs strong foundational support in reading and math may want to understand what intervention programs the school offers. The school does not serve high school grades, so there is no graduation rate to report; that metric simply does not apply here. The available data gives a grounded, if incomplete, picture of a school that is solidly within the mainstream of its parish but not an outlier in either direction.
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