Tri-County Elementary School

Tri-County Elementary School is a minimally staffed primary school in Thornburg, Iowa, overseen by Tri-County Comm School District. The school teaches 102 students in grades pre-K through 6. That puts it 69% below the typical public school in Iowa, which averages around 325 students.

Tri-County Comm School District comprises 2 schools with combined enrollment of 179 students; Tri-County Elementary School is among them.

In terms of who attends, Tri-County Elementary School logs that nearly all students (92%) are White. The remainder breaks down as 5% Hispanic. That mix tracks the wider county fairly closely.

In terms of school funding signals, On paper, Tri-County Elementary School has 7 full-time-equivalent teachers, translating to a class-load average of around 15.4:1. Statewide, the average ratio sits near 13.7:1, putting Tri-County Elementary School higher than the state norm the norm. An estimated 50% of students are eligible for free or reduced-price lunch, which schools and policymakers use as a rough income-mix signal. By comparison, Keokuk County runs at roughly 41%, so the school's eligibility rate is higher than the surrounding baseline.

Adjusting for the school's free-and-reduced-lunch share, Tri-County Elementary School performs roughly as the BeatsExpectations model predicts for a school with this FRL share. The predicted value is around 66.9%, the actual is 63.2%, a residual of -3.8 points.

Around the school, community-level numbers for Keokuk County indicate the typical household earns roughly $62,329 per year, roughly 17% of adults have completed at least a four-year degree, and the poverty rate sits near 11%. Across Keokuk County's 6 public schools (combined enrollment of about 1,063 students), Tri-County Elementary School is one campus in the mix.

Nearest neighbor: Tri-County JR/SR High School, around 0.0 miles off. Ranking that nearby cluster on reported proficiency puts Tri-County Elementary School at 9th of 9; the average score across the group is 75.3%.

Tri-County Elementary School operates from a countryside location.

Five-year trend. Over the past 7-year window, the student count shrank 26%: 138 students in 2018 compared to 102 in 2025. Class-load math has rose: from 12.8:1 in 2018 to 15.4:1 in 2025.

In the discussion threads here, members of the Tri-County Elementary School community share and discuss fundraisers, lost-and-found posts, and report-card season. Anyone with firsthand experience at this school can post or comment.