Chahta-Ima Elementary School

Set in Lacombe, Louisiana, Chahta-Ima Elementary School is a modestly sized elementary school, part of St. Tammany Parish. It hosts 319 students across grades pre-K through 3. Enrollment runs roughly 30% below the state mean of about 453.

Within St. Tammany Parish, which oversees 55 schools and 35,956 students, Chahta-Ima Elementary School is one campus in the system.

On the student-mix side, Chahta-Ima Elementary School logs that 43% of students identify as White, with the remaining enrollment distributed across several groups; the rest breaks down as 27% Black, 21% Hispanic, 8% multiracial. That is meaningfully less White than the county at large, where the share is closer to 74%.

On the income-and-resources front, The school lists 29 full-time-equivalent teachers, for a student-teacher ratio near 11.1:1. The state averages around 14.0:1, so this campus is tighter than the state norm typical. About 66% of enrolled students meet the income threshold for free or reduced-price lunch, a number frequently used as a low-income enrollment indicator. By comparison, St. Tammany Parish runs at roughly 44%, so the school's eligibility rate is somewhat above the surrounding baseline.

With demographic context factored in, Chahta-Ima Elementary School performs roughly as the BeatsExpectations model predicts for a school with this FRL share. The predicted value is around 37.2%, the actual is 39.0%, a residual of +1.8 points.

Across the wider county, St. Tammany Parish reports that median household earnings sit near $81,202, roughly 38% of adults have completed at least a four-year degree, and roughly 9% of residents live below the federal poverty line. Chahta-Ima Elementary School is one of 56 public schools in St. Tammany Parish (combined enrollment of about 36,212 students).

The closest other public school is Bayou Lacombe Middle, roughly 0.3 miles away. Counting just inside five miles, 3 other public schools cluster around Chahta-Ima Elementary School. On composite proficiency, Chahta-Ima Elementary School comes 6th of 8 in the immediate cluster, behind the nearby-schools average of 53.5%.

The school occupies a rural site.

Trend over the last 7 years. Over the past 7-year window, the student count rose 12%: 284 students in 2018 compared to 319 in 2025. Over the same period, the Hispanic share expanded from 8% to 21%. The student-to-teacher ratio fell from 14.4:1 in 2018 to 11.1:1 today.

In the discussion threads here, the page collects discussion, questions, and updates around classroom updates, athletics, and weather closures. Members of the school community can share what they know.