Oak Park Elementary School

Oak Park Elementary School is a K-5 school of cozy scale in Lake Charles, Louisiana, part of Calcasieu Parish, serveing 259 students in grades pre-K through 5. Enrollment runs roughly 43% below the state mean of about 453.

Oak Park Elementary School is one of 56 schools operated by Calcasieu Parish, a district that teaches 27,851 students overall.

In terms of who attends, Oak Park Elementary School reports that nearly all students (94%) are Black. The remainder breaks down as 2% White, 2% multiracial. By comparison, Calcasieu Parish as a whole is about 23% Black, so the school skews visibly more Black than its surroundings.

Looking at school resources, On paper, Oak Park Elementary School has 25 full-time-equivalent teachers, translating to a class-load average of around 10.3:1. Statewide, the average ratio sits near 14.0:1, putting Oak Park Elementary School tighter than the state norm the norm. About 85% of enrolled students meet the income threshold for free or reduced-price lunch, a number frequently used as a low-income enrollment indicator. That share is higher than Calcasieu Parish's rate of about 59%.

Adjusting for the school's free-and-reduced-lunch share, Oak Park Elementary School performs roughly as the BeatsExpectations model predicts for a school with this FRL share. The predicted value is around 23.4%, the actual is 19.3%, a residual of -4.0 points.

In the surrounding community, ACS estimates for Calcasieu Parish put the typical household earns roughly $67,564 per year, roughly 25% of adults have completed at least a four-year degree, and the poverty rate sits near 13%. In all, Calcasieu Parish runs 61 public schools (combined enrollment of about 30,278 students), of which Oak Park Elementary School is one.

Nearest neighbor: Oak Park Middle School, around 0.4 miles off. 8 of the 8 nearest public schools sit inside a five-mile radius. Ranking that nearby cluster on reported proficiency puts Oak Park Elementary School at 6th of 7; the average score across the group is 32.0%.

Geographically, the school is in a high-density area.

Looking at the recent track record. Over the past 7-year window, the student count fell 42%: 447 students in 2018 compared to 259 in 2025. The student-to-teacher ratio tightened from 14.9:1 in 2018 to 10.3:1 today.

In the discussion threads here, members of the Oak Park 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.