Dodson El Sch

As a reasonably sized primary school in Wilkes Barre, Pennsylvania, Dodson El Sch instructs 522 students from grades K through 5, operated by Wilkes-Barre Area SD.

Wilkes-Barre Area SD comprises 10 schools with combined enrollment of 8,277 students; Dodson El Sch is among them.

On demographics, Dodson El Sch shows that 68% of the student body identifies as Hispanic. Beyond that, the school lists 15% Black, 8% White, 8% multiracial. That is meaningfully more Hispanic than the county at large, where the share is closer to 17%.

On the resource side, Staff filings list 26 full-time-equivalent teachers, which works out to roughly 20.1:1 students per teacher. Statewide, the average ratio sits near 13.1:1, putting Dodson El Sch higher than the state norm the norm. About 93% of enrolled students meet the income threshold for free or reduced-price lunch, a number frequently used as a low-income enrollment indicator. By comparison, Luzerne County runs at roughly 85%, so the school's eligibility rate is higher than the surrounding baseline.

With demographic context factored in, Dodson El Sch performs roughly as the BeatsExpectations model predicts for a school with this FRL share. The predicted value is around 37.9%, the actual is 29.1%, a residual of -8.8 points.

In the broader community, community-level numbers for Luzerne County indicate median household income runs about $63,691, roughly 25% of adults have completed at least a four-year degree, and census figures put the poverty rate at about 11%. Across Luzerne County's 65 public schools (combined enrollment of about 45,209 students), Dodson El Sch is one campus in the mix.

Daniel J Flood El Sch is the nearest neighboring public school, about 0.5 miles from this campus. 8 of the 8 nearest public schools sit inside a five-mile radius. Among the 8 schools in that immediate cluster with test data (this one included), Dodson El Sch ranks 6th on composite proficiency, below the local average of 39.7%.

Geographically, the school is in an urban area.

Trend over the last 7 years. Over the past 7-year window, the student count declined 8%: 569 students in 2018 compared to 522 in 2025. Hispanic enrollment moved from 49% to 68% across the same window. The student-to-teacher ratio grew from 16.6:1 in 2018 to 20.1:1 today.

On this page, members of the Dodson El Sch community share and discuss fundraisers, lost-and-found posts, and report-card season. Anyone with firsthand experience at this school can post or comment.