West Elementary School

West Elementary School is an elementary school of average-sized scale in Emmetsburg, Iowa, overseen by Emmetsburg Comm School District, enrolling 293 students in grades pre-K through 4.

Emmetsburg Comm School District comprises 3 schools with combined enrollment of 727 students; West Elementary School is among them.

On demographics, West Elementary School reports that the student body is overwhelmingly White (89%). Beyond that, the school reports 6% Hispanic, 2% multiracial. That mix tracks the wider county fairly closely.

On the resource side, Staff filings list 7 full-time-equivalent teachers, which works out to roughly 39.6:1 students per teacher. The state averages around 13.7:1, so this campus is higher than the state norm typical. Around 43% of the student body qualifies for free or reduced-price meals, often used as a Title I proxy.

On a residual basis (actual vs predicted given the student mix), West Elementary School performs roughly as the BeatsExpectations model predicts for a school with this FRL share. The predicted value is around 70.3%, the actual is 78.7%, a residual of +8.5 points.

Across the wider county, census data for Palo Alto County shows the typical household earns roughly $72,781 per year, roughly 19% of adults have completed at least a four-year degree, and roughly 9% of residents live below the federal poverty line. Across Palo Alto County's 10 public schools (combined enrollment of about 1,472 students), West Elementary School is one campus in the mix.

Emmetsburg Middle School is the nearest neighboring public school, about 0.5 miles from this campus. Counting just inside five miles, 2 other public schools cluster around West Elementary School. On composite proficiency, West Elementary School comes 1st of 9 in the immediate cluster, higher than the nearby-schools average of 67.6%.

Geographically, the school is in a small-town area.

Over the past 7-year window. Over the past 7-year window, the student count ticked down 4%: 306 students in 2018 compared to 293 in 2025. The student-to-teacher ratio grew from 12.8:1 in 2018 to 39.6:1 today.

Within the allk12 community for this school, members of the West Elementary School community share and discuss science fair prep, picture-day reminders, and bus-route questions. Contributors range from current parents to recent graduates and teachers.