The top reported proficiency rate is 26% in English language arts. The lowest is 12% in Social studies.
Original Research by School Decision on J. A. Phillips Elementary School
J. A. Phillips Elementary School serves children from pre-kindergarten through first grade in Minden, the parish seat of Webster Parish in northwestern Louisiana. It is a regular public school within the Webster Parish school system and the only district in the county, so comparisons to neighboring districts are not possible here. For a family with a young child just starting school, this is the entry point: a single building that covers the earliest years before students move on to another campus for second grade and beyond.
Academic data for this school is essentially absent, and for a straightforward reason. State standardized testing in Louisiana begins in third grade, and J. A. Phillips Elementary does not serve any tested grades. The state testing results that appear in the school’s data file belong to a grade six cohort from a time when the building operated as J. A. Phillips Middle School. That data is not relevant to the current pre-K through first-grade program, and it would be misleading to treat it as a measure of this school’s performance. What can be said is that the school offers the standard early-elementary curriculum for its grade band, and no information about specialized programs, course access, or instructional model was available in the sources reviewed. A parent who wants a detailed picture of how reading and math are taught in these early grades would need to contact the school directly.
The student body is diverse in a way that reflects Minden itself. More than half of the enrolled students come from households with income low enough to qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, a substantial share. Racially, the school is predominantly Black, followed by White, with smaller groups of students who are two or more races or Hispanic. No data was reported on the share of students with disabilities or English learners, so those dimensions of support are not captured here. The enrollment is small for the grade band it serves, and all students are in pre-kindergarten, kindergarten, or first grade, so the peer group is uniformly young.
Minden is a small city that has been losing population for years. Housing values are modest and have been declining recently, which shapes the local real estate market. The median home value in the zip code is well below national and state benchmarks, and the owner-occupancy rate means a mix of homeowners and renters. The local economy relies on retail, healthcare, and hospitality, and many residents commute to Shreveport or other nearby areas. The historic Main Street district adds a civic anchor, but the overall built environment is low-density and car-dependent. For families considering a move to Minden, the housing costs are relatively low, but the population decline and limited job growth may be factors to weigh.
The district itself appears stable; a search for recent policy changes, budget shifts, or program overhauls turned up little of lasting impact. That could mean the district has not undergone visible disruption, or simply that the changes were not prominent enough to surface in a broad search. Either way, a parent should expect continuity rather than transformation from the Webster Parish system.
J. A. Phillips Elementary School fits a family living in or moving to the Minden area who wants a traditional early elementary experience for a child entering pre-K, kindergarten, or first grade. The lack of test data is normal for this grade band, but it also means families have fewer quantitative markers to judge academic progress. The school serves a high-needs population, which often comes with additional supports, though no Title I status was confirmed in the data. After first grade, students will transition to another school in the district, so the choice here is really about the first few years. Families who value a small, neighborhood-grounded start with a diverse student body will find that here, set in a quiet, slowly shrinking city with affordable housing.
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