Central Elementary School

Central Elementary School is one of the mid-tier elementary schools in Portage, Indiana, one of the schools within Portage Township Schools, with 409 students on its rolls from grades K through 5.

Within Portage Township Schools, which oversees 11 schools and 6,519 students, Central Elementary School is one campus in the system.

In terms of who attends, Central Elementary School records that the most-represented group is White (46%), with the rest of the student body spread across multiple groups. Other groups include 30% Hispanic, 16% Black, 8% multiracial. By comparison, Porter County as a whole is about 84% White, so the school skews meaningfully less White than its surroundings.

In terms of school funding signals, Staff filings list 25 full-time-equivalent teachers, which works out to roughly 16.4:1 students per teacher. The state averages around 15.5:1, so this campus is higher than the state norm typical. An estimated 49% of students are eligible for free or reduced-price lunch, often used as a Title I proxy. By comparison, Porter County runs at roughly 34%, so the school's eligibility rate is higher than the surrounding baseline.

With demographic context factored in, On a poverty-adjusted basis, Central Elementary School sits in the bottom 10% statewide. Predicted proficiency from the FRL regression is roughly 40.9%; actual is 24.7%, a gap of -16.2 points.

Across the wider county, Porter County reports that median household income runs about $87,972, 31% of adults hold a bachelor's degree or higher, and roughly 8% of residents live below the federal poverty line. Across Porter County's 55 public schools (combined enrollment of about 25,813 students), Central Elementary School is one campus in the mix.

Wallace Aylesworth Elementary is the nearest neighboring public school, about 0.5 miles from this campus. Counting just inside five miles, 8 other public schools cluster around Central Elementary School. Among the 7 schools in that immediate cluster with test data (this one included), Central Elementary School ranks 7th on composite proficiency, below the local average of 31.6%.

The campus sits in a residential setting.

Looking at the recent track record. Over the past 7-year window, the student count shrank 22%: 526 students in 2018 compared to 409 in 2025. Over the same period, the White share fell from 54% to 46%. Class-load math has pulled in: from 20.2:1 in 2018 to 16.4:1 in 2025.

Inside the community feed, members of the Central Elementary School community share and discuss school events, parent volunteer needs, and clubs. Members of the school community can share what they know.