The top reported proficiency rate is 38% in English language arts. The lowest is 20% in Science.
Original Research by School Decision on Mangham Junior High School
Mangham Junior High School is a regular public school serving grades six through eight in the village of Mangham, Louisiana, under the Richland Parish School Board. It is one of three public school campuses in this small community, sitting alongside Mangham Elementary and Mangham High. The student body, around two hundred students, is divided fairly evenly across the three middle school grades. By race and ethnicity, the school is predominantly White, with a Black or African American enrollment of just over a fifth of students, a small Hispanic share, and fewer than a handful of students who identify as two or more races. Just under half of the students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch through the federal meal program, a level that suggests a substantial share of families have moderate to low incomes. Data on students with disabilities and English learners was not reported, so a parent may want to ask the school directly about special education caseload and any English language support available.
Academically, the school participates in Louisiana’s LEAP 2025 state assessments for grades three through eight. In the most recent year reported, proficiency rates across subjects were modest and broadly similar to what is often seen in small rural middle schools. The highest share of students scored at the proficient or advanced level in English language arts, followed by math, then social studies, and science had the lowest rate. The school achieved full participation by all students, which strengthens the reliability of the results. When considered alongside the other school districts in Richland Parish, Mangham Junior High’s overall proficiency performance — a combined index across all tested subjects — placed at the top of that small group. Because the parish has only two school districts, that top position is a narrow comparison, but it does indicate the school is the stronger of the two options within the immediate county context for these middle school grades. No multiyear trend data is available beyond this single year, so it is not possible to see whether these results represent an improvement or a decline over time.
The village of Mangham itself is a rural crossroads community of very few square miles, straddling the Richland and Franklin Parish line. Its main artery is Louisiana Highway 15, and the built environment is low-density residential and modest commercial uses. The population has been edging downward, a gradual contraction common to small rural towns in northeastern Louisiana. There are no major new housing developments or growth projects noted in publicly available sources. The local economy relies heavily on the school district as an employer, along with a rural health clinic and small businesses along the highway corridor. Civic and recreational amenities are limited within the village; residents typically look to Rayville, the parish seat, or other nearby towns for libraries, parks, and services.
For a family considering Mangham Junior High, the academic picture is one of a school that performs modestly on state benchmarks but leads the small pool of Richland Parish districts for its middle school level. The student peer group is racially homogenous relative to more diverse parts of the state, and the economic backdrop is rural and economically modest. The school does not appear to offer a wide range of specialized programs or course access; no such program data was available. Similarly, information on discipline rates, chronic absenteeism, and staffing was absent from the available records. A parent interested in those dimensions would need to contact the school or district for details. The school sits within a village that is not growing and that lacks extensive public services, so the day-to-day experience for a middle schooler here will be shaped by a tight-knit, rural community school environment more than by a bustling town setting. The district’s recent strategic priorities or operational changes were not found in publicly available searches, so how the district is evolving remains an open question.
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