L F Smith Elementary

L F Smith Elementary is one of the moderately sized elementary schools in Columbus, Indiana, overseen by Bartholomew Con School Corp, with 420 students on its rolls from grades pre-K through 6.

Within Bartholomew Con School Corp, which oversees 16 schools and 11,657 students, L F Smith Elementary is one campus in the system.

For racial and ethnic makeup, L F Smith Elementary lists that 71% of the student body identifies as White. Beyond that, the school logs 16% Hispanic, 8% multiracial, 4% Black. That is noticeably less White than the county at large, where the share is closer to 79%.

Looking at school resources, Staff filings list 27 full-time-equivalent teachers, which works out to roughly 15.5:1 students per teacher. That tracks the state average closely. An estimated 58% of students are eligible for free or reduced-price lunch, which schools and policymakers use as a rough income-mix signal. By comparison, Bartholomew County runs at roughly 44%, so the school's eligibility rate is somewhat above the surrounding baseline.

Adjusting for the school's free-and-reduced-lunch share, L F Smith Elementary sits in the middle band of the BeatsExpectations distribution. Schools with this campus's student mix typically land near 34.6%; this one delivers 34.2%.

Zooming out to the county, community-level numbers for Bartholomew County indicate median household income runs about $79,901, roughly 34% of adults have completed at least a four-year degree, and roughly 7% of residents live below the federal poverty line. Across Bartholomew County's 20 public schools (combined enrollment of about 12,688 students), L F Smith Elementary is one campus in the mix.

Nearest neighbor: Clifty Creek Elementary School, around 0.9 miles off. Within five miles, there are 8 other public schools. On composite proficiency, L F Smith Elementary comes 4th of 6 in the immediate cluster, higher than the nearby-schools average of 33.5%.

Geographically, the school is in an inner-city area.

Trend over the last 7 years. Over the past 7-year window, the student count contracted 20%: 523 students in 2018 compared to 420 in 2025. The Hispanic share of enrollment expanded from 11% to 16% over that span. The student-to-teacher ratio tightened from 19.0:1 in 2018 to 15.5:1 today.

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