Prairie Ridge Elementary School

Prairie Ridge Elementary School is an elementary-level community of mid-tier scale in KALAMAZOO, Michigan, part of Kalamazoo Public Schools, instructing 449 students in grades pre-K through 5. Compared to the state average of about 369 students per school, that is 22% larger than typical.

Within Kalamazoo Public Schools, which oversees 26 schools and 12,227 students, Prairie Ridge Elementary School is one campus in the system.

For racial and ethnic makeup, Prairie Ridge Elementary School reports that the most-represented group is White (38%), with the rest of the student body spread across multiple groups; the rest looks like 36% Black, 19% multiracial, 4% Hispanic, 3% Asian. That is visibly less White than the county at large, where the share is closer to 76%.

In terms of school funding signals, On paper, Prairie Ridge Elementary School has 24 full-time-equivalent teachers, translating to a class-load average of around 18.4:1. That figure is higher than the state norm's 15.8:1 average. An estimated 65% of students are eligible for free or reduced-price lunch, often used as a Title I proxy. By comparison, Kalamazoo County runs at roughly 45%, so the school's eligibility rate is meaningfully above the surrounding baseline.

After controlling for student poverty, Prairie Ridge Elementary School performs roughly as the BeatsExpectations model predicts for a school with this FRL share. The predicted value is around 37.6%, the actual is 39.5%, a residual of +1.9 points.

Around the school, census data for Kalamazoo County shows the typical household earns roughly $72,532 per year, roughly 41% of adults have completed at least a four-year degree, and the poverty rate sits near 8%. Prairie Ridge Elementary School is one of 93 public schools in Kalamazoo County (combined enrollment of about 34,151 students).

The closest other public school is Youth Advancement Academy, roughly 0.8 miles away. Counting just inside five miles, 8 other public schools cluster around Prairie Ridge Elementary School. On composite proficiency, Prairie Ridge Elementary School comes 4th of 7 in the immediate cluster, behind the nearby-schools average of 39.9%.

Geographically, the school is in a residential area.

Over the past 7-year window. Over the past 7-year window, the student count fell 7%: 485 students in 2018 compared to 449 in 2025. Over the same period, the Hispanic share fell from 10% to 4%.

On this page, recent activity here tends to focus on open house dates, ride-share offers, and field-trip permission slips. Contributors range from current parents to recent graduates and teachers.