Ponderosa Elementary

Set in Bend, Oregon, Ponderosa Elementary is a moderately sized primary school, run under Bend-LaPine Administrative SD 1. It works with 464 students across grades K through 5. That puts it 45% bigger than the typical public school in Oregon, which averages around 321 students.

Bend-LaPine Administrative SD 1 comprises 35 schools with combined enrollment of 16,838 students; Ponderosa Elementary is among them.

Looking at the student body, Ponderosa Elementary shows that the largest single group is White, at 78% of enrollment. The remainder is composed of 12% Hispanic, 7% multiracial, 3% Asian. By comparison, Deschutes County as a whole is about 87% White, so the school skews visibly less White than its surroundings.

On the resource side, Staff filings list 24 full-time-equivalent teachers, which works out to roughly 19.7:1 students per teacher. That figure is higher than the state norm's 16.5:1 average. Around 48% of the student body qualifies for free or reduced-price meals, often used as a Title I proxy. That share is south of Deschutes County's rate of about 60%.

On a residual basis (actual vs predicted given the student mix), Ponderosa Elementary tracks the demographic baseline. The model predicts 43.9% given the school's FRL share; actual proficiency is 49.3%.

Zooming out to the county, Deschutes County reports that median household earnings sit near $92,758, about 45% of the adult population holds a bachelor's degree or above, and census figures put the poverty rate at about 5%. Across Deschutes County's 53 public schools (combined enrollment of about 25,823 students), Ponderosa Elementary is one campus in the mix.

The closest other public school is Realms Middle School, roughly 0.9 miles away. Within five miles, there are 8 other public schools. On composite proficiency, Ponderosa Elementary comes 1st of 7 in the immediate cluster, higher than the nearby-schools average of 40.0%.

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

Five-year trend. Ponderosa Elementary's enrollment has contracted 21% since 2018, when it stood at 584 (now 464). Over the same period, the White share ticked down from 84% to 78%.

On this page, recent activity here tends to focus on science fair prep, picture-day reminders, and bus-route questions. Anyone with firsthand experience at this school can post or comment.