Original Research by School Decision on Medical District High School
Medical District High School is a regular public high school within Memphis-Shelby County Schools, serving grades nine through twelve. Located at 737 Union Avenue in downtown Memphis, it is a small high school by enrollment, drawing its student body from a city with extensive civic, cultural, and athletic amenities.
The school’s student body is composed predominantly of Black students, with a smaller share of Hispanic students and a still smaller White and multiracial presence. State testing data was not available, and the comparison to other districts in Shelby County could not include proficiency, graduation, or chronic absenteeism measures for this school due to missing values. Without these common academic benchmarks, it is not possible to characterize the school’s overall academic performance relative to its peers. A parent or guardian should consider asking the school or district directly for current state test results, graduation rates, and attendance data.
The school has a small enrollment, and the grade-level counts show that it serves ninth through eleventh graders in the reported year, with no seniors reported. This means the school has no four-year graduation rate to examine from this data. A family should verify with the school its current grade configuration and whether a typical four-year program operates there.
Economic context for the surrounding area shows that the housing market is somewhat more affordable than the national median, with home values slightly below the national benchmark and rents below it as well. This context affects the housing prospects for families considering a move to the area near the school.
The parent district, Memphis-Shelby County Schools, has been the subject of publicly reported planning around school closures and potential property tax referendums in recent years. These district-level developments could affect individual school resources, programming, or attendance boundaries, so a family may want to stay informed on the district’s ongoing financial and operational decisions.
What this school offers most clearly is a very small high school setting in downtown Memphis. For a student who may prefer a less populous school environment within a large urban district, that small size is the defining characteristic. Beyond that, a prospective family will need to gather from the school itself what academic pathways, elective offerings, career and technical programs, and support services are available, as this information was not present in the available data. The city of Memphis provides nearby parks, including the renovated Tom Lee Park along the river, and cultural landmarks such as the National Civil Rights Museum and Beale Street, which are accessible from the Union Avenue location.
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