Jefferson Elementary School

Jefferson Elementary School, a mid-sized elementary school in Des Moines, Iowa, part of Des Moines Independent Comm School District, educates 312 students, covering grades pre-K through 5.

Des Moines Independent Comm School District comprises 59 schools with combined enrollment of 29,676 students; Jefferson Elementary School is among them.

On demographics, Jefferson Elementary School reports that the largest single group is White, at 65% of enrollment. Other groups include 12% Hispanic, 11% Black, 8% multiracial, 3% Asian. That is noticeably less White than the county at large, where the share is closer to 76%.

On the resource side, Staff filings list 22 full-time-equivalent teachers, which works out to roughly 14.3:1 students per teacher. That tracks the state average closely. Roughly 41% of students at Jefferson Elementary School qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, a commonly cited indicator of low-income enrollment. By comparison, Polk County runs at roughly 49%, so the school's eligibility rate is somewhat below the surrounding baseline.

Adjusting for the school's free-and-reduced-lunch share, Jefferson Elementary School performs roughly as the BeatsExpectations model predicts for a school with this FRL share. The predicted value is around 71.3%, the actual is 70.7%, a residual of -0.6 points.

Across the wider county, the surrounding county (Polk County) shows that the typical household earns roughly $83,576 per year, about 40% of the adult population holds a bachelor's degree or above, and census figures put the poverty rate at about 7%. Jefferson Elementary School is one of 137 public schools in Polk County (combined enrollment of about 77,436 students).

Nearest neighbor: Brody Middle School, around 0.5 miles off. Counting just inside five miles, 8 other public schools cluster around Jefferson Elementary School. Among the 7 schools in that immediate cluster with test data (this one included), Jefferson Elementary School ranks 1st on composite proficiency, above the local average of 45.9%.

The campus sits in a city-core setting.

Five-year trend. Jefferson Elementary School's enrollment has decreased 20% since 2018, when it stood at 392 (now 312). Over the same period, the White share decreased from 72% to 65%. The student-to-teacher ratio pulled in from 17.0:1 in 2018 to 14.3:1 today.

Inside the community feed, posts here usually surface around sports schedules, lunch menu changes, and school spirit week. Anyone with firsthand experience at this school can post or comment.