Cardinal Valley Elementary School

Cardinal Valley Elementary School is a K-5 school of well-populated scale in Lexington, Kentucky, part of Fayette County, educateing 643 students in grades pre-K through 5. That puts it 53% above the typical public school in Kentucky, which averages around 421 students.

Fayette County runs 73 schools in total, collectively educating 42,138 students. Cardinal Valley Elementary School is one of those campuses.

On the student-mix side, Cardinal Valley Elementary School logs that the largest single group is Hispanic, at 77% of enrollment. The remainder is composed of 13% Black, 7% White, 3% multiracial. By comparison, Fayette County as a whole is about 10% Hispanic, so the school skews visibly more Hispanic than its surroundings.

Looking at the economic backdrop, Staff filings list 53 full-time-equivalent teachers, which works out to roughly 12.1:1 students per teacher. The state averages around 15.4:1, so this campus is tighter than the state norm typical. About 65% of enrolled students meet the income threshold for free or reduced-price lunch, a commonly cited indicator of low-income enrollment. By comparison, Fayette County runs at roughly 50%, so the school's eligibility rate is above the surrounding baseline.

On a residual basis (actual vs predicted given the student mix), On a poverty-adjusted basis, Cardinal Valley Elementary School sits in the bottom 10% statewide. Predicted proficiency from the FRL regression is roughly 40.7%; actual is 19.5%, a gap of -21.2 points.

Across the wider county, community-level numbers for Fayette County indicate median household income runs about $69,479, 48% of adults hold a bachelor's degree or higher, and roughly 9% of residents live below the federal poverty line. Across Fayette County's 81 public schools (combined enrollment of about 42,142 students), Cardinal Valley Elementary School is one campus in the mix.

Nearest neighbor: Audrey Grevious Center, around 1.0 miles off. 8 of the 8 nearest public schools sit inside a five-mile radius. Ranking that nearby cluster on reported proficiency puts Cardinal Valley Elementary School at 7th of 7; the average score across the group is 45.6%.

The campus sits in a city-core setting.

Five-year trend. Over the past 7-year window, the student count remained close to its prior level: 632 students in 2018 compared to 643 in 2025. The White share of enrollment shrank from 12% to 7% over that span.

Inside the community feed, the page collects discussion, questions, and updates around sports schedules, lunch menu changes, and school spirit week. Contributors range from current parents to recent graduates and teachers.