Vernonia Elementary School

Vernonia Elementary School, a low-enrollment elementary school in Vernonia, Oregon, operated by Vernonia SD 47J, educates 206 students, covering grades K through 5. That puts it 36% leaner than the typical public school in Oregon, which averages around 321 students.

Vernonia SD 47J comprises 4 schools with combined enrollment of 554 students; Vernonia Elementary School is among them.

Demographically, Vernonia Elementary School lists that 78% of the student body identifies as White. Other groups include 13% Hispanic, 8% multiracial.

On the income-and-resources front, Staff filings list 17 full-time-equivalent teachers, which works out to roughly 12.2:1 students per teacher. That figure is tighter than the state norm's 16.5:1 average. An estimated 72% of students are eligible for free or reduced-price lunch, often used as a Title I proxy. Set against Columbia County (around 62%), the school's rate is north of typical.

On a residual basis (actual vs predicted given the student mix), Vernonia Elementary School performs roughly as the BeatsExpectations model predicts for a school with this FRL share. The predicted value is around 34.7%, the actual is 24.6%, a residual of -10.1 points.

In the surrounding community, census data for Columbia County shows the typical household earns roughly $87,458 per year, 20% of adults hold a bachelor's degree or higher, and the poverty rate sits near 6%. In all, Columbia County runs 23 public schools (combined enrollment of about 6,932 students), of which Vernonia Elementary School is one.

Nearest neighbor: Vernonia High School, around 0.0 miles off. Counting just inside five miles, 2 other public schools cluster around Vernonia Elementary School. On composite proficiency, Vernonia Elementary School comes 6th of 7 in the immediate cluster, behind the nearby-schools average of 39.3%.

Vernonia Elementary School operates from a low-density location.

Five-year trend. Looking back 7 years, enrollment at Vernonia Elementary School has ticked down 5%, going from 217 students in 2018 to 206 in 2025. White enrollment moved from 88% to 78% across the same window. Class-load math has tightened: from 19.7:1 in 2018 to 12.2:1 in 2025.

On allk12, members of the Vernonia Elementary School community share and discuss fundraisers, lost-and-found posts, and report-card season. Contributors range from current parents to recent graduates and teachers.