Gardner Elem

Gardner Elem, a reasonably sized primary school in Gardner, Kansas, overseen by Gardner Edgerton, enrolls 304 students, covering grades pre-K through 4.

Across the 11 schools in Gardner Edgerton (5,854 students total), Gardner Elem accounts for its share of the district's footprint.

On demographics, Gardner Elem records that the largest single group is White, at 68% of enrollment; the rest comes out to 14% Hispanic, 12% multiracial, 4% Black. The wider county runs roughly 79% White, putting the school's mix visibly less White than the area baseline.

On the resource side, Gardner Elem reports 27 full-time-equivalent teachers, putting the student-to-teacher ratio at about 11.3:1. The state averages around 13.2:1, so this campus is tighter than the state norm typical. Roughly 47% of students at Gardner Elem qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, often used as a Title I proxy. Set against Johnson County (around 27%), the school's rate is north of typical.

Adjusting for the school's free-and-reduced-lunch share, Gardner Elem ranks in the top 10% of Kansas public schools. The BeatsExpectations model, a per-state regression of composite proficiency on FRL share, predicts schools with this student profile to land around 39.8%; Gardner Elem posts 55.9%, +16.0 points above that line.

Around the school, census data for Johnson County shows the typical household earns roughly $109,208 per year, about 58% of the adult population holds a bachelor's degree or above, and the poverty rate sits near 3%. In all, Johnson County runs 168 public schools (combined enrollment of about 93,598 students), of which Gardner Elem is one.

Nearest neighbor: Wheatridge Middle School, around 0.1 miles off. 8 of the 8 nearest public schools sit inside a five-mile radius. Among the 9 schools in that immediate cluster with test data (this one included), Gardner Elem ranks 1st on composite proficiency, above the local average of 38.9%.

The campus sits in a bedroom-community setting.

Looking at the recent track record. Gardner Elem's enrollment has decreased 5% since 2018, when it stood at 319 (now 304). Over the same period, the White share ticked down from 80% to 68%. Class-load math has pulled in: from 13.6:1 in 2018 to 11.3:1 in 2025.

On this page, members of the Gardner Elem community share and discuss pickup logistics, teacher feedback, and after-school programs. Members of the school community can share what they know.