Parkside Education Center

Parkside Education Center, an one-room-style elementary school in Palmerton, Pennsylvania, operated by Palmerton Area SD, enrolls 150 students, covering grades K through 1. Compared to the state average of about 443 students per school, that is 66% below typical.

Palmerton Area SD comprises 5 schools with combined enrollment of 1,616 students; Parkside Education Center is among them.

For racial and ethnic makeup, Parkside Education Center lists that 83% of students identify as White, making the school strongly White-majority; the rest looks like 10% Hispanic, 6% multiracial.

Looking at school resources, On paper, Parkside Education Center has 13 full-time-equivalent teachers, translating to a class-load average of around 11.8:1. That figure is tighter than the state norm's 13.1:1 average. About 58% of enrolled students meet the income threshold for free or reduced-price lunch, which schools and policymakers use as a rough income-mix signal.

In the surrounding community, community-level numbers for Carbon County indicate the typical household earns roughly $67,554 per year, roughly 19% of adults have completed at least a four-year degree, and the poverty rate sits near 8%. In all, Carbon County runs 18 public schools (combined enrollment of about 8,111 students), of which Parkside Education Center is one.

Nearest neighbor: S S Palmer El Sch, around 0.2 miles off. Within five miles, there are 7 other public schools.

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

Looking at the recent track record. Over the past 7-year window, the student count contracted 9%: 165 students in 2018 compared to 150 in 2025. Over the same period, the White share declined from 93% to 83%. The student-to-teacher ratio pulled in from 17.2:1 in 2018 to 11.8:1 today.

On this page, posts here usually surface around open house dates, ride-share offers, and field-trip permission slips. Contributors range from current parents to recent graduates and teachers.