The Downtown School

Set in Winston Salem, North Carolina, The Downtown School is a middle-of-the-pack elementary campus, run under Winston Salem / Forsyth County Schools. It instructs 453 students across grades pre-K through 8.

Across the 79 schools in Winston Salem / Forsyth County Schools (51,745 students total), The Downtown School accounts for its share of the district's footprint.

For racial and ethnic makeup, The Downtown School shows that the most-represented group is White (47%), with the rest of the student body spread across multiple groups. Beyond that, the school shows 34% Black, 9% Hispanic, 8% multiracial. The wider county runs roughly 56% White, putting the school's mix meaningfully less White than the area baseline.

On the income-and-resources front, The school lists 35 full-time-equivalent teachers, for a student-teacher ratio near 13.0:1. The state averages around 14.9:1, so this campus is tighter than the state norm typical. Around 25% of the student body qualifies for free or reduced-price meals, a commonly cited indicator of low-income enrollment. By comparison, Forsyth County runs at roughly 88%, so the school's eligibility rate is lower than the surrounding baseline.

Adjusting for the school's free-and-reduced-lunch share, The Downtown School performs roughly as the BeatsExpectations model predicts for a school with this FRL share. The predicted value is around 71.2%, the actual is 74.6%, a residual of +3.4 points.

In the area at large, ACS estimates for Forsyth County put the typical household earns roughly $67,165 per year, about 39% of the adult population holds a bachelor's degree or above, and census figures put the poverty rate at about 10%. Across Forsyth County's 88 public schools (combined enrollment of about 55,902 students), The Downtown School is one campus in the mix.

Virtual Academy is the nearest neighboring public school, about 0.1 miles from this campus. 8 of the 8 nearest public schools sit inside a five-mile radius. Ranking that nearby cluster on reported proficiency puts The Downtown School at 1st of 5; the average score across the group is 44.0%.

The school occupies a city-core site.

Five-year trend. Over the past 7-year window, the student count grew 6%: 426 students in 2018 compared to 453 in 2025. White enrollment moved from 51% to 47% across the same window.

In the discussion threads here, recent activity here tends to focus on classroom updates, athletics, and weather closures. Members of the school community can share what they know.