Hartman El Ctr

As a moderately sized elementary campus in Catawissa, Pennsylvania, Hartman El Ctr works with 480 students from grades K through 4, part of Southern Columbia Area SD.

Across the 3 schools in Southern Columbia Area SD (1,195 students total), Hartman El Ctr accounts for its share of the district's footprint.

On the student-mix side, Hartman El Ctr logs that 95% of students identify as White, making the school strongly White-majority. Other groups include 2% multiracial. That mix tracks the wider county fairly closely.

On the income-and-resources front, Hartman El Ctr lists 37 full-time-equivalent teachers, putting the student-to-teacher ratio at about 12.9:1. That tracks the state average closely. An estimated 36% of students are eligible for free or reduced-price lunch, a number frequently used as a low-income enrollment indicator. Set against Columbia County (around 56%), the school's rate is noticeably below typical.

With demographic context factored in, Hartman El Ctr tracks the demographic baseline. The model predicts 62.2% given the school's FRL share; actual proficiency is 65.8%.

In the broader community, ACS estimates for Columbia County put median household income runs about $64,644, roughly 27% of adults have completed at least a four-year degree, and census figures put the poverty rate at about 8%. In all, Columbia County runs 20 public schools (combined enrollment of about 7,501 students), of which Hartman El Ctr is one.

The closest other public school is Southern Columbia HS, roughly 0.1 miles away. 2 of the 8 nearest public schools sit inside a five-mile radius. Among the 6 schools in that immediate cluster with test data (this one included), Hartman El Ctr ranks 1st on composite proficiency, higher than the local average of 56.4%.

The school occupies a countryside site.

Over the past 7-year window. Over the past 7-year window, the student count remained close to its prior level: 478 students in 2018 compared to 480 in 2025.

Inside the community feed, posts here usually surface around open house dates, ride-share offers, and field-trip permission slips. Anyone with firsthand experience at this school can post or comment.