Dolby Elementary School

Dolby Elementary School is a compact K-5 school in Lake Charles, Louisiana, one of the schools within Calcasieu Parish. The school caters to 360 students in grades pre-K through 5. By comparison, Louisiana's public schools average about 453 students each, so Dolby Elementary School sits 21% leaner than that benchmark.

Dolby Elementary School is one of 56 schools operated by Calcasieu Parish, a district that serves 27,851 students overall.

On the student-mix side, Dolby Elementary School lists that the most-represented group is Black (47%), with the rest of the student body spread across multiple groups. Beyond that, the school records 41% White, 6% Hispanic, 6% multiracial. That is noticeably more Black than the county at large, where the share is closer to 23%.

In terms of school funding signals, On paper, Dolby Elementary School has 31 full-time-equivalent teachers, translating to a class-load average of around 11.5:1. That figure is tighter than the state norm's 14.0:1 average. Roughly 61% of students at Dolby Elementary School qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, which schools and policymakers use as a rough income-mix signal.

On a residual basis (actual vs predicted given the student mix), Dolby Elementary School performs roughly as the BeatsExpectations model predicts for a school with this FRL share. The predicted value is around 40.1%, the actual is 43.3%, a residual of +3.2 points.

Across the wider county, the surrounding county (Calcasieu Parish) reports that the typical household earns roughly $67,564 per year, roughly 25% of adults have completed at least a four-year degree, and the poverty rate sits near 13%. Across Calcasieu Parish's 61 public schools (combined enrollment of about 30,278 students), Dolby Elementary School is one campus in the mix.

A. A. Nelson Elementary School is the nearest neighboring public school, about 0.8 miles from this campus. Within five miles, there are 8 other public schools. Ranking that nearby cluster on reported proficiency puts Dolby Elementary School at 3rd of 8; the average score across the group is 31.4%.

Geographically, the school is in a metropolitan area.

Over the past 7-year window. Over the past 7-year window, the student count contracted 9%: 395 students in 2018 compared to 360 in 2025. The Black share of enrollment climbed from 26% to 47% over that span. The student-to-teacher ratio narrowed from 16.5:1 in 2018 to 11.5:1 today.

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