Kalapuya Elementary School

Set in Salem, Oregon, Kalapuya Elementary School is an expansive K-5 school, one of the schools within Salem-Keizer SD 24J. It hosts 483 students across grades K through 5. Enrollment runs roughly 50% above the state mean of about 321.

Salem-Keizer SD 24J runs 65 schools in total, collectively educating 37,776 students. Kalapuya Elementary School is one of those campuses.

On the student-mix side, Kalapuya Elementary School logs that White students make up the majority at 62%; the rest breaks down as 23% Hispanic, 9% multiracial, 3% Black, 2% Asian. That is meaningfully less White than the county at large, where the share is closer to 78%.

On the income-and-resources front, The school lists 22 full-time-equivalent teachers, for a student-teacher ratio near 21.7:1. That figure is higher than the state norm's 16.5:1 average. About 88% of enrolled students meet the income threshold for free or reduced-price lunch, a number frequently used as a low-income enrollment indicator.

With demographic context factored in, Kalapuya Elementary School ranks in the top 10% of Oregon public schools. The BeatsExpectations model, a per-state regression of composite proficiency on FRL share, predicts schools with this student profile to land around 28.3%; Kalapuya Elementary School posts 47.5%, +19.2 points above that line.

In the surrounding community, census data for Polk County shows the typical household earns roughly $85,118 per year, 31% of adults hold a bachelor's degree or higher, and the poverty rate sits near 9%. Kalapuya Elementary School is one of 24 public schools in Polk County (combined enrollment of about 11,121 students).

Nearest neighbor: Straub Middle School, around 0.2 miles off. Counting just inside five miles, 8 other public schools cluster around Kalapuya Elementary School. Among the 9 schools in that immediate cluster with test data (this one included), Kalapuya Elementary School ranks 1st on composite proficiency, ahead of the local average of 32.1%.

The school occupies a metropolitan site.

Trend over the last 7 years. Looking back 7 years, enrollment at Kalapuya Elementary School has fell 19%, going from 600 students in 2018 to 483 in 2025. White enrollment moved from 74% to 62% across the same window. Class-load math has pulled in: from 23.0:1 in 2018 to 21.7:1 in 2025.

On this page, posts here usually surface around science fair prep, picture-day reminders, and bus-route questions. Anyone with firsthand experience at this school can post or comment.