Ethel Schoeffner Elementary School, Destrehan LA

Original Research by School Decision on Ethel Schoeffner Elementary School

Ethel Schoeffner Elementary School serves grades three through five in Destrehan, an unincorporated suburban community in St. Charles Parish that sits on the east bank of the Mississippi River as part of the New Orleans metropolitan area. The school is a regular public school within the St. Charles Parish Public School System, whose civic anchors in Destrehan also include Destrehan High School and Harry M. Hurst Middle School. The area is mainly residential, grew rapidly in the late twentieth century, and has seen that growth plateau more recently. The historic Destrehan Plantation on River Road is another key local landmark.

The student body at Schoeffner is majority white, with Black students making up the next largest group, followed by Hispanic students and a smaller share of multiracial students. Roughly two in five students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch. The school serves a tight grade band of only three grade levels, which means students are there for a focused stretch of their elementary years before moving on to a middle school.

On state assessments administered through Louisiana's LEAP 2025 program, the school's strongest showing came in math, where just over half of students scored at the proficient or advanced level. English language arts results were close behind. Science and social studies proficiency rates were lower, with about a third of students reaching the proficient bar in each subject. Because the school has only two years of comparable trend data, and that window includes an assessment change that affects comparability in social studies, it is difficult to say whether these results represent a pattern or a snapshot. A parent may want to ask the school directly how it approaches science and social studies instruction in the upper elementary years and whether recent scores align with what teachers are seeing in the classroom.

The St. Charles Parish district did not have publicly reported information on recent strategic initiatives or major changes, so that context is absent here. No data was available on chronic absenteeism, discipline rates, course access, or staffing ratios for Schoeffner, and the comparison fact-set could not position the school among other county schools because the cohort was too small to yield meaningful analysis.

The housing market in the school's zip code is above the state median home value, with rents that are moderate relative to national benchmarks. The area's unemployment rate has been stable, and median household income at the national level has been rising modestly. For a family considering Destrehan, the neighborhood is established and largely residential, and the school serves a specific, contained role in the elementary-to-middle-school pipeline. Schoeffner is not a K-5 feeder but a targeted upper-elementary setting, which shapes how a child experiences the transition into it and out of it. The school's academic profile shows a clear split between math and reading on one side and science and social studies on the other, and families may want to understand what enrichment or intervention supports exist in those lower-scoring subjects.

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Academic performance

How students perform on state tests, by grade, set against the district.

Math

Grades 3-854%

School 54% · District 48% · ▲ 6 pts above district

▲ 26 pts above state median · ▲ 3 pts above county median

English language arts

Grades 3-852%

School 52% · District 49% · ▲ 3 pts above district

▲ 13 pts above state median · ▲ 3 pts above county median

Science

Grades 3-834%

School 34% · District 35% · ▼ 1 pts below district

▲ 11 pts above state median · ▼ 2 pts below county median

Social studies

Grades 3-833%

School 33% · District 38% · ▼ 5 pts below district

▲ 7 pts above state median · even with county median

This schoolSt. Charles Parish, same grade

Graduation rate (ACGR) reflects the federally published Adjusted Cohort Graduation Rate for the most recent year available. We refresh this data annually at the close of each academic year in June. The federal source publishes a banded rate (for example, "90-94%") instead of an exact number for cohorts small enough to risk identifying individual students. The state distribution chart, where shown, plots every school in the state with a published rate or band; schools whose rate is federally suppressed are excluded. Where the federal source publishes a band rather than an exact rate, the school is placed within its band using a stable, ID-derived offset, so its position is consistent across visits.

Proficiency by household income

English language arts

Grade 3Lower-income25%Higher-income62%37 pp gap

Grade 4Lower-income42%Higher-income66%24 pp gap

Grades 3-8Lower-income33%Higher-income70%37 pp gap

Mathematics

Grade 3Lower-income30%Higher-income49%19 pp gap

Grades 3-8Lower-income40%Higher-income65%25 pp gap