Jackson Elementary School

Jackson Elementary School, a heavily attended K-5 school in Des Moines, Iowa, part of Des Moines Independent Comm School District, serves 490 students, covering grades pre-K through 5. Compared to the state average of about 325 students per school, that is 51% above typical.

Jackson Elementary School is one of 59 schools operated by Des Moines Independent Comm School District, a district that educates 29,676 students overall.

For racial and ethnic makeup, Jackson Elementary School reports that 41% of students identify as Hispanic, with the remaining enrollment distributed across several groups; the rest consists of 22% Black, 21% White, 11% Asian, 6% multiracial. The wider county runs roughly 10% Hispanic, putting the school's mix meaningfully more Hispanic than the area baseline.

On the resource side, Jackson Elementary School shows 33 full-time-equivalent teachers, putting the student-to-teacher ratio at about 14.9:1. The state averages around 13.7:1, so this campus is higher than the state norm typical. An estimated 81% of students are eligible for free or reduced-price lunch, a number frequently used as a low-income enrollment indicator. Set against Polk County (around 49%), the school's rate is north of typical.

Adjusting for the school's free-and-reduced-lunch share, Jackson Elementary School performs roughly as the BeatsExpectations model predicts for a school with this FRL share. The predicted value is around 51.6%, the actual is 48.1%, a residual of -3.5 points.

In the broader community, ACS estimates for Polk County put the typical household earns roughly $83,576 per year, 40% of adults hold a bachelor's degree or higher, and roughly 7% of residents live below the federal poverty line. Jackson Elementary School is one of 137 public schools in Polk County (combined enrollment of about 77,436 students).

Weeks Middle School is the nearest neighboring public school, about 0.6 miles from this campus. 8 of the 8 nearest public schools sit inside a five-mile radius. On composite proficiency, Jackson Elementary School comes 1st of 8 in the immediate cluster, ahead of the nearby-schools average of 43.6%.

The school occupies a downtown site.

Looking at the recent track record. Looking back 7 years, enrollment at Jackson Elementary School has edged up 15%, going from 427 students in 2018 to 490 in 2025. White enrollment moved from 30% to 21% across the same window. Class-load math has loosened: from 12.9:1 in 2018 to 14.9:1 in 2025.

On the community side, posts here usually surface around enrollment questions, classroom assignments, and PTA news. Members of the school community can share what they know.