J. Wallace James Elementary School

J. Wallace James Elementary School operates as a big elementary school in Scott, Louisiana, part of Lafayette Parish. Current enrollment sits at 957 students spanning grades pre-K through 5. By comparison, Louisiana's public schools average about 453 students each, so J. Wallace James Elementary School sits 111% bigger than that benchmark.

Within Lafayette Parish, which oversees 44 schools and 29,396 students, J. Wallace James Elementary School is one campus in the system.

On the student-mix side, J. Wallace James Elementary School reports that 50% of students identify as Black, with the remaining enrollment distributed across several groups. Other groups include 42% White, 4% Hispanic. That is meaningfully more Black than the county at large, where the share is closer to 25%.

On the resource side, On paper, J. Wallace James Elementary School has 48 full-time-equivalent teachers, translating to a class-load average of around 20.1:1. That figure is higher than the state norm's 14.0:1 average. An estimated 51% of students are eligible for free or reduced-price lunch, often used as a Title I proxy.

After controlling for student poverty, J. Wallace James Elementary School performs roughly as the BeatsExpectations model predicts for a school with this FRL share. The predicted value is around 47.5%, the actual is 47.3%, a residual of -0.1 points.

In the broader community, the surrounding county (Lafayette Parish) shows that median household income runs about $67,451, roughly 35% of adults have completed at least a four-year degree, and roughly 13% of residents live below the federal poverty line. Across Lafayette Parish's 50 public schools (combined enrollment of about 35,903 students), J. Wallace James Elementary School is one campus in the mix.

The closest other public school is Truman Early Childhood Education Center, roughly 0.6 miles away. Within five miles, there are 8 other public schools. Ranking that nearby cluster on reported proficiency puts J. Wallace James Elementary School at 2nd of 5; the average score across the group is 32.1%.

The campus sits in an urban setting.

Five-year trend. Over the past 7-year window, the student count edged up 4%: 921 students in 2018 compared to 957 in 2025. The Black share of enrollment rose from 39% to 50% over that span. The student-to-teacher ratio rose from 18.1:1 in 2018 to 20.1:1 today.

On this page, posts here usually surface around open house dates, ride-share offers, and field-trip permission slips. Contributors range from current parents to recent graduates and teachers.