W.L. Abney Elementary

Located at 825 Kostmayer Avenue, in Slidell, Louisiana, W.L. Abney Elementary is a well-populated elementary school that enrolls 936 students (grades 1 through 5), one of the schools within St. Tammany Parish. Enrollment runs roughly 107% above the state mean of about 453.

St. Tammany Parish comprises 55 schools with combined enrollment of 35,956 students; W.L. Abney Elementary is among them.

For racial and ethnic makeup, W.L. Abney Elementary lists that Black students make up the majority at 67%; the rest comes out to 17% White, 8% Hispanic, 4% multiracial, 2% Asian. By comparison, St. Tammany Parish as a whole is about 12% Black, so the school skews noticeably more Black than its surroundings.

In terms of school funding signals, The school currently runs with 69 full-time-equivalent teachers, for a student-teacher ratio near 13.6:1. The state averages about 14.0:1, putting this campus right in line with peers. About 72% of enrolled students meet the income threshold for free or reduced-price lunch, a number frequently used as a low-income enrollment indicator. That share is above St. Tammany Parish's rate of about 44%.

With demographic context factored in, W.L. Abney Elementary tracks the demographic baseline. The model predicts 32.6% given the school's FRL share; actual proficiency is 22.3%.

Around the school, community-level numbers for St. Tammany Parish indicate the typical household earns roughly $81,202 per year, roughly 38% of adults have completed at least a four-year degree, and the poverty rate sits near 9%. Across St. Tammany Parish's 56 public schools (combined enrollment of about 36,212 students), W.L. Abney Elementary is one campus in the mix.

Nearest neighbor: Abney Elementary Early Childhood Center, around 0.1 miles off. 8 of the 8 nearest public schools sit inside a five-mile radius. Ranking that nearby cluster on reported proficiency puts W.L. Abney Elementary at 4th of 6; the average score across the group is 27.3%.

The school occupies an inner-city site.

Trend over the last 7 years. Over the past 7-year window, the student count edged up 10%: 852 students in 2018 compared to 936 in 2025. White enrollment moved from 34% to 17% across the same window. The student-to-teacher ratio fell from 17.5:1 in 2018 to 13.6:1 today.

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