The top reported proficiency rate is 10% in Math. The lowest is 0% in Social studies.
Original Research by School Decision on Colfax Elementary School
Colfax Elementary School serves students from kindergarten through fifth grade in the small, rural parish seat of Grant Parish. The school is a regular public school, not a charter, and the enrollment is small. The community it sits in has a long history as a civic center, though the town’s population has been declining for years, and the local economy offers limited private-sector employment. The median household income in Colfax is low, and the school’s own data shows that a substantial share of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch.
The student body is majority Black, with a smaller share of white students and a modest portion identifying as two or more races. The school does not serve high school grades, so there is no graduation rate to report, and the grade band means state testing data covers only the grades that are assessed. Because the school is the only one of its kind in the comparison set, there is no meaningful way to place its performance against other districts in Grant Parish, as the comparison data indicates the cohort is too small to draw such a comparison.
State assessment results from the most recent testing year show that proficiency rates across math, English language arts, and science are low for all tested grade levels. In mathematics, the share of students scoring at proficient or above ranged from a very small fraction in third grade to a slightly larger but still low share in fifth grade. In English language arts, the pattern was similar, with the highest rate occurring in fourth grade, though still at a low level, and the lowest in fifth grade. Science results followed the same trend, with a modest peak in fourth grade and a low figure in fifth. Social studies data from the prior school year shows that no third graders reached the proficient level, and the results for fourth and fifth graders were reported as a very narrow range starting from near zero.
These numbers point to a school where the vast majority of students are not meeting the state’s proficiency bar. Small tested populations mean that a single student’s performance can have an outsized effect on the reported rate, but even allowing for that, the overall pattern is one of low academic attainment. Parents considering this school may want to discuss with the school or district what interventions or supports are in place to lift student performance.
The locale is a very small town with a highway running through its center and limited commercial activity. The town has no high school of its own; secondary students attend Grant High School in Dry Prong, a neighboring community. Civic life is anchored by the parish courthouse and plans for a local history museum. The area is not growing. There were no major district-level changes, curriculum updates, or referendums reported in recent years, so parents should expect a stable if resource-constrained environment. For a family looking at Colfax Elementary, the central consideration will be whether the support systems available match the challenges evident in the school’s academic data.
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