East St. John Preparatory Academy

Located at 400 Ory Drive, in LaPlace, Louisiana, East St. John Preparatory Academy is a compact junior high that hosts 318 students (grades 5 through 8), part of St. John the Baptist Parish. That puts it 28% smaller than the typical public school in Louisiana, which averages around 440 students.

St. John the Baptist Parish comprises 10 schools with combined enrollment of 5,039 students; East St. John Preparatory Academy is among them.

Demographically, East St. John Preparatory Academy reports that 82% of students identify as Black, making the school strongly Black-majority. Other groups include 13% Hispanic, 3% White, 2% multiracial. By comparison, St. John the Baptist Parish as a whole is about 57% Black, so the school skews meaningfully more Black than its surroundings.

Looking at the economic backdrop, On paper, East St. John Preparatory Academy has 20 full-time-equivalent teachers, translating to a class-load average of around 15.8:1. That figure is tighter than the state norm's 41.0:1 average. About 85% of enrolled students meet the income threshold for free or reduced-price lunch, a commonly cited indicator of low-income enrollment.

After controlling for student poverty, East St. John Preparatory Academy falls in the UNDERPERFORMING tier of the BeatsExpectations residual. Given its student profile, a typical campus would land near 23.2%; this one comes in at 9.0%, -14.2 points off the demographic line.

In the surrounding community, census data for St. John the Baptist Parish shows the typical household earns roughly $66,630 per year, roughly 18% of adults have completed at least a four-year degree, and roughly 9% of residents live below the federal poverty line. East St. John Preparatory Academy is one of 10 public schools in St. John the Baptist Parish (combined enrollment of about 5,039 students).

The closest other public school is East St. John High School, roughly 0.8 miles away. Counting just inside five miles, 8 other public schools cluster around East St. John Preparatory Academy. Ranking that nearby cluster on reported proficiency puts East St. John Preparatory Academy at 8th of 8; the average score across the group is 20.9%.

Geographically, the school is in a commuter-belt area.

Five-year trend. Over the past 7-year window, the student count declined 25%: 426 students in 2018 compared to 318 in 2025. Hispanic enrollment moved from 7% to 13% across the same window.

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