The top reported proficiency rate is 34% in English language arts. The lowest is 16% in Social studies.
Original Research by School Decision on T. H. Watkins Elementary School
T. H. Watkins Elementary School serves students in kindergarten through fifth grade as a regular public school in the Calcasieu Parish school system, located in Lake Charles, Louisiana. The school sits in a mid-sized industrial city that is a major center for petrochemical refining, casino tourism, and higher education, home to McNeese State University and Sowela Technical Community College. Lake Charles was severely damaged by back-to-back hurricanes in 2020, and the district itself has since passed an unusually large budget driven by FEMA reimbursement and rebuilding funds to reconstruct or renovate at least ten school facilities. The city’s population has declined modestly from its 2020 peak, and typical home values in the area are well below both the state and national benchmarks, making this a relatively affordable housing market.
Watkins is a small elementary school with a student body that is overwhelmingly composed of Black students. A substantial share of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch. The school’s peer environment, in short, is shaped by concentrated economic need. Data on the share of students receiving special education services or classified as English learners was not available; a parent may want to ask the school directly about the supports available for students with disabilities and multilingual learners.
State testing data from the most recent school year provides the clearest picture of academic performance. On the LEAP 2025 assessments, Watkins’s proficiency rates place the school in the bottom quartile among elementary schools in Calcasieu Parish’s districts. In English language arts, roughly a third of students scored at the proficient or above level. In math, about a quarter of students reached that benchmark. Science and social studies were lower, with fewer than one in five students scoring proficient. Participation rates on the tests were very high, so the results represent nearly all enrolled students. The school has only a single year of comparable assessment data, so there is no trend to evaluate.
As an elementary school serving kindergarten through fifth grade, Watkins does not have a graduation rate, an advanced placement program, or career and technical pathways, as those apply only to high schools.
The district that operates Watkins, Calcasieu Parish, has recently pursued several priorities that affect families here. In late 2024, voters renewed two property tax millages that generate roughly a certain sum annually for teacher salaries and school operations, without raising the tax rate. That renewal secures ongoing funding for staffing and programs. The district has also implemented a districtwide literacy initiative featuring structured literacy approaches and reading intervention programs, a shift that won a Magna Award. What this means for a family considering Watkins is that the school belongs to a district that has made sustained financial commitments to teacher retention and reading instruction, even as the school itself is working from a low proficiency baseline.
This is a small neighborhood school in an affordable, blue-collar city that has absorbed repeated natural disasters and is slowly rebuilding. A parent should expect a setting where nearly all students come from low-income households and where the academic numbers are well below the parish average. The district’s literacy initiative may be a lever for improvement, but the available data shows that gains have not yet registered in the school’s test results. A parent considering Watkins should talk with the principal about what reading and math interventions are currently in place, how the school supports students who are behind grade level, and what the school’s own improvement plan looks like.
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