The top reported proficiency rate is 44% in English language arts. The lowest is 30% in Social studies.
Original Research by School Decision on Berwick Junior High School
Berwick Junior High School serves grades six through eight in the town of Berwick, a small riverfront community on the east bank of the Atchafalaya River in St. Mary Parish. The school is a regular public school and part of the St. Mary Parish school system. Its enrollment of roughly that size for a junior high is spread across the three middle grades. A modest majority of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, which is the national measure of low-income household status. The student body is predominantly white, with a notable Hispanic share and smaller representations of students who identify as Black, Asian, two or more races, or other groups.
On the Louisiana LEAP 2025 assessments, the school’s proficiency rates tell a mixed story. In English language arts, approaching half of students scored at or above the proficient level. In math, just over a third of students met that bar. Science and social studies each had roughly three in ten students reaching proficiency. These are the results from a single year of testing, so there is no trendline to examine for improvement or decline; only this snapshot exists. Across the four subjects, the school’s overall proficiency index lands above the midpoint when placed against the two other districts in St. Mary Parish, a small cohort that makes comparisons fairly limited. A parent looking at these numbers may want to discuss with the school how it supports students who are not yet at the proficient mark, particularly in math and science, where the share of students reaching that level is lower.
Because the school serves only middle grades, it has no graduation rate to report, and the available data does not include information on chronic absenteeism, discipline, staffing ratios, or course access. Those are meaningful gaps. Without attendance and discipline data, it is hard to get a full picture of the daily environment. Similarly, the absence of course-access information means a family cannot easily assess whether the school offers electives, advanced coursework, or enrichment programs typical of this grade band. It is possible that these details are maintained at the district level, but they are not recorded here. The school’s special education and English learner counts were not reported in the available data, so the extent of those programs is unclear.
The town of Berwick itself is a compact place shaped by its riverfront location. Its economy has long been tied to seafood processing and boat building, and it sits within the broader Morgan City micropolitan area, where oil and gas also factor into the regional economy. The population has been declining, and the town has pursued a Louisiana Cultural District designation as a strategy to draw visitors and investment through tax incentives tied to historic rehabilitation and local art sales. Civic anchors are modest: a riverfront promenade, a lighthouse park with a relocated historic beacon, a heritage museum, and a recreation department. The town is small enough that the school buildings—there are separate elementary, junior high, and high school campuses—are presumably a short drive from the downtown core, though precise locations were not detailed in available sources. Walkability is limited, as is typical for a small Louisiana town.
No recent district-level changes or initiatives from St. Mary Parish were found in the material reviewed, so there is no news on bond measures, boundary shifts, or program overhauls that might affect the school in the near term. For a family considering Berwick Junior High, the key factors are the academic picture presented by a single year of state testing, the absence of several environment and access data points that would round out the portrait, and the broader context of a small, slowly shrinking river town with a working waterfront economy. The school’s proficiency results, particularly in math and science, are areas a prospective parent would reasonably want to probe with the administration, as would the missing information on student support services and disciplinary climate.
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