Ernest P. Barka Elementary School

Ernest P. Barka Elementary School is a sprawling K-5 school in Derry, New Hampshire, run under Derry Cooperative School District. The school hosts 485 students in grades K through 4. That puts it 95% larger than the typical public school in New Hampshire, which averages around 249 students.

Derry Cooperative School District runs 9 schools in total, collectively educating 3,906 students. Ernest P. Barka Elementary School is one of those campuses.

Demographically, Ernest P. Barka Elementary School logs that nearly all students (84%) are White; the rest breaks down as 8% multiracial, 7% Hispanic.

In terms of school funding signals, The school currently runs with 40 full-time-equivalent teachers, for a student-teacher ratio near 12.1:1. That figure is higher than the state norm's 11.0:1 average. About 24% of enrolled students meet the income threshold for free or reduced-price lunch, a commonly cited indicator of low-income enrollment. Set against Rockingham County (around 13%), the school's rate is somewhat above typical.

Adjusting for the school's free-and-reduced-lunch share, Ernest P. Barka Elementary School performs roughly as the BeatsExpectations model predicts for a school with this FRL share. The predicted value is around 48.4%, the actual is 45.7%, a residual of -2.7 points.

In the surrounding community, the surrounding county (Rockingham County) shows that median household income runs about $118,331, roughly 46% of adults have completed at least a four-year degree, and roughly 3% of residents live below the federal poverty line. Ernest P. Barka Elementary School is one of 99 public schools in Rockingham County (combined enrollment of about 41,753 students).

Pinkerton Academy is the nearest neighboring public school, about 1.1 miles from this campus. Counting just inside five miles, 8 other public schools cluster around Ernest P. Barka Elementary School. On composite proficiency, Ernest P. Barka Elementary School comes 1st of 4 in the immediate cluster, ahead of the nearby-schools average of 40.4%.

The school occupies a residential site.

Five-year trend. Over the past 7-year window, the student count shrank 9%: 535 students in 2018 compared to 485 in 2025. White enrollment moved from 89% to 84% across the same window. Class-load math has fell: from 14.9:1 in 2018 to 12.1:1 in 2025.

Inside the community feed, the page collects discussion, questions, and updates around classroom updates, athletics, and weather closures. Members of the school community can share what they know.