McKinley STEAM Academy

McKinley STEAM Academy is one of the reasonably sized middle-grades schools in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, part of Cedar Rapids Comm School District, with 426 students on its rolls from grades 6 through 8.

Across the 35 schools in Cedar Rapids Comm School District (15,494 students total), McKinley STEAM Academy accounts for its share of the district's footprint.

On demographics, McKinley STEAM Academy logs that the most-represented group is White (51%), with the rest of the student body spread across multiple groups. The remainder reads as 27% Black, 12% multiracial, 8% Hispanic. By comparison, Linn County as a whole is about 84% White, so the school skews considerably less White than its surroundings.

Looking at school resources, McKinley STEAM Academy lists 32 full-time-equivalent teachers, putting the student-to-teacher ratio at about 13.4:1. Statewide, the average ratio sits near 15.2:1, putting McKinley STEAM Academy tighter than the state norm the norm. Roughly 61% of students at McKinley STEAM Academy qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, often used as a Title I proxy. Set against Linn County (around 40%), the school's rate is meaningfully above typical.

After controlling for student poverty, McKinley STEAM Academy sits in the middle band of the BeatsExpectations distribution. Schools with this campus's student mix typically land near 61.6%; this one delivers 58.1%.

In the area at large, community-level numbers for Linn County indicate median household income runs about $77,649, 35% of adults hold a bachelor's degree or higher, and census figures put the poverty rate at about 6%. McKinley STEAM Academy is one of 83 public schools in Linn County (combined enrollment of about 36,480 students).

Nearest neighbor: Metro High School, around 0.5 miles off. 8 of the 8 nearest public schools sit inside a five-mile radius. On composite proficiency, McKinley STEAM Academy comes 4th of 7 in the immediate cluster, above the nearby-schools average of 51.1%.

The school occupies a city-core site.

Looking at the recent track record. Over the past 7-year window, the student count contracted 7%: 459 students in 2018 compared to 426 in 2025.

In the discussion threads here, posts here usually surface around open house dates, ride-share offers, and field-trip permission slips. Posting is open to anyone connected to the school.