Oak Park

Oak Park, a reasonably sized K-5 school in Des Moines, Iowa, part of Des Moines Independent Comm School District, caters to 288 students, covering grades K through 5.

Des Moines Independent Comm School District runs 59 schools in total, collectively educating 29,676 students. Oak Park is one of those campuses.

In terms of who attends, Oak Park reports that 32% of students identify as Hispanic, with the remaining enrollment distributed across several groups. Other groups include 27% White, 25% Black, 7% multiracial, 7% Asian. The wider county runs roughly 10% Hispanic, putting the school's mix meaningfully more Hispanic than the area baseline.

In terms of school funding signals, The school currently runs with 27 full-time-equivalent teachers, for a student-teacher ratio near 10.6:1. That figure is tighter than the state norm's 13.7:1 average. An estimated 78% of students are eligible for free or reduced-price lunch, often used as a Title I proxy. That share is north of Polk County's rate of about 49%.

Adjusting for the school's free-and-reduced-lunch share, Oak Park is in the bottom 10% of Iowa public schools. The BeatsExpectations model predicts schools with this FRL share to land around 52.7%; Oak Park posts 38.9%, -13.8 points below that line.

Across the wider county, ACS estimates for Polk County put median household income runs about $83,576, roughly 40% of adults have completed at least a four-year degree, and roughly 7% of residents live below the federal poverty line. In all, Polk County runs 137 public schools (combined enrollment of about 77,436 students), of which Oak Park is one.

Nearest neighbor: Great Oaks High School and Career Center, around 0.4 miles off. Within five miles, there are 8 other public schools. On composite proficiency, Oak Park comes 7th of 8 in the immediate cluster, beneath the nearby-schools average of 40.1%.

The school occupies an inner-city site.

Trend over the last 7 years. Over the past 7-year window, the student count declined 22%: 369 students in 2018 compared to 288 in 2025. The Hispanic share of enrollment increased from 24% to 32% over that span. Class-load math has narrowed: from 11.9:1 in 2018 to 10.6:1 in 2025.

Inside the community feed, posts here usually surface around classroom updates, athletics, and weather closures. Members of the school community can share what they know.