Ursa Minor Elementary

Set in JBER, Alaska, Ursa Minor Elementary is a reasonably sized primary school, run under Anchorage School District. It teaches 294 students across grades pre-K through 6.

Anchorage School District comprises 92 schools with combined enrollment of 40,587 students; Ursa Minor Elementary is among them.

Demographically, Ursa Minor Elementary logs that White students make up the majority at 55%. The remainder breaks down as 18% Hispanic, 13% multiracial, 6% Black, 4% Asian. That composition is broadly in line with Anchorage Municipality as a whole.

On the income-and-resources front, The school lists 16 full-time-equivalent teachers, for a student-teacher ratio near 18.2:1. That figure is higher than the state norm's 15.3:1 average. Roughly 38% of students at Ursa Minor Elementary qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, a number frequently used as a low-income enrollment indicator. Set against Anchorage Municipality (around 49%), the school's rate is somewhat below typical.

On a residual basis (actual vs predicted given the student mix), Ursa Minor Elementary performs roughly as the BeatsExpectations model predicts for a school with this FRL share. The predicted value is around 40.4%, the actual is 44.1%, a residual of +3.8 points.

In the broader community, the surrounding county (Anchorage Municipality) records that the typical household earns roughly $103,284 per year, 39% of adults hold a bachelor's degree or higher, and the poverty rate sits near 5%. Ursa Minor Elementary is one of 99 public schools in Anchorage Municipality (combined enrollment of about 41,241 students).

Nearest neighbor: Bartlett High School, around 1.8 miles off. Counting just inside five miles, 8 other public schools cluster around Ursa Minor Elementary.

The school occupies a metropolitan site.

Trend over the last 7 years. Looking back 7 years, enrollment at Ursa Minor Elementary has declined 4%, going from 305 students in 2018 to 294 in 2025. The Black share of enrollment edged down from 11% to 6% over that span. Class-load math has rose: from 15.5:1 in 2018 to 18.2:1 in 2025.

On this page, posts here usually surface around enrollment questions, classroom assignments, and PTA news. The community welcomes input from current and former families.