Caln El Sch

Located at 3609 Lincoln Hwy, in Thorndale, Pennsylvania, Caln El Sch is a mid-tier elementary-level community that teaches 440 students (grades K through 5), part of Coatesville Area SD.

Caln El Sch is one of 9 schools operated by Coatesville Area SD, a district that hosts 5,142 students overall.

Looking at the student body, Caln El Sch logs that the largest single group is Black at 33%, but no single group is in the majority. The remainder breaks down as 30% White, 28% Hispanic, 8% multiracial. That is meaningfully more Black than the county at large, where the share is closer to 5%.

Looking at school resources, Staff filings list 35 full-time-equivalent teachers, which works out to roughly 12.5:1 students per teacher. The state averages about 13.1:1, putting this campus right in line with peers. Roughly 103% of students at Caln El Sch qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, which schools and policymakers use as a rough income-mix signal. Set against Chester County (around 38%), the school's rate is north of typical.

Adjusting for the school's free-and-reduced-lunch share, Caln El Sch performs roughly as the BeatsExpectations model predicts for a school with this FRL share. The predicted value is around 33.5%, the actual is 29.6%, a residual of -3.9 points.

In the broader community, census data for Chester County shows the typical household earns roughly $127,208 per year, 57% of adults hold a bachelor's degree or higher, and the poverty rate sits near 4%. In all, Chester County runs 111 public schools (combined enrollment of about 83,468 students), of which Caln El Sch is one.

The closest other public school is Beaver Creek El Sch, roughly 1.6 miles away. Within five miles, there are 8 other public schools. On composite proficiency, Caln El Sch comes 7th of 8 in the immediate cluster, beneath the nearby-schools average of 70.4%.

Geographically, the school is in a suburban area.

Over the past 7-year window. Looking back 7 years, enrollment at Caln El Sch has edged down 6%, going from 467 students in 2018 to 440 in 2025. The Hispanic share of enrollment grew from 24% to 28% over that span.

On the community side, the page collects discussion, questions, and updates around science fair prep, picture-day reminders, and bus-route questions. Contributors range from current parents to recent graduates and teachers.