Cottonwood Elementary School

Cottonwood Elementary School is one of the mid-tier K-5 schools in Fernley, Nevada, operated by Lyon, with 572 students on its rolls from grades pre-K through 4.

Lyon runs 19 schools in total, collectively educating 9,169 students. Cottonwood Elementary School is one of those campuses.

In terms of who attends, Cottonwood Elementary School reports that the most-represented group is White (54%), with the rest of the student body spread across multiple groups. The remainder comes out to 37% Hispanic, 6% multiracial. That is visibly less White than the county at large, where the share is closer to 74%.

On the resource side, On paper, Cottonwood Elementary School has 28 full-time-equivalent teachers, translating to a class-load average of around 20.4:1. That figure is higher than the state norm's 18.1:1 average. Roughly 100% of students at Cottonwood Elementary School qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, which schools and policymakers use as a rough income-mix signal.

After controlling for student poverty, Cottonwood Elementary School performs roughly as the BeatsExpectations model predicts for a school with this FRL share. The predicted value is around 32.5%, the actual is 27.9%, a residual of -4.6 points.

Around the school, Lyon County reports that median household income runs about $80,812, roughly 17% of adults have completed at least a four-year degree, and the poverty rate sits near 8%. Cottonwood Elementary School is one of 20 public schools in Lyon County (combined enrollment of about 9,169 students).

Fernley High School is the nearest neighboring public school, about 1.0 miles from this campus. Counting just inside five miles, 6 other public schools cluster around Cottonwood Elementary School. Ranking that nearby cluster on reported proficiency puts Cottonwood Elementary School at 3rd of 7; the average score across the group is 26.6%.

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

Five-year trend. Over the past 7-year window, the student count shrank 14%: 668 students in 2018 compared to 572 in 2025. Over the same period, the Hispanic share edged up from 25% to 37%. Class-load math has rose: from 17.6:1 in 2018 to 20.4:1 in 2025.

Within the allk12 community for this school, the feed for Cottonwood Elementary School typically covers science fair prep, picture-day reminders, and bus-route questions. Anyone with firsthand experience at this school can post or comment.