CATER EL

Set in TEMPLE, Texas, CATER EL is a low-enrollment elementary-level community, overseen by TEMPLE ISD. It caters to 309 students across grades pre-K through 5. By comparison, Texas's public schools average about 519 students each, so CATER EL sits 40% leaner than that benchmark.

Within TEMPLE ISD, which oversees 17 schools and 9,073 students, CATER EL is one campus in the system.

Demographically, CATER EL lists that 43% of students identify as Hispanic, with the remaining enrollment distributed across several groups. Beyond that, the school logs 26% White, 22% Black, 7% multiracial. By comparison, Bell County as a whole is about 26% Hispanic, so the school skews visibly more Hispanic than its surroundings.

On the resource side, Staff filings list 22 full-time-equivalent teachers, which works out to roughly 15.0:1 students per teacher. That tracks the state average closely. About 78% of enrolled students meet the income threshold for free or reduced-price lunch, which schools and policymakers use as a rough income-mix signal. That share is above Bell County's rate of about 57%.

With demographic context factored in, CATER EL sits in the middle band of the BeatsExpectations distribution. Schools with this campus's student mix typically land near 39.7%; this one delivers 34.8%.

In the area at large, census data for Bell County shows the typical household earns roughly $68,865 per year, 27% of adults hold a bachelor's degree or higher, and the poverty rate sits near 11%. In all, Bell County runs 130 public schools (combined enrollment of about 71,041 students), of which CATER EL is one.

Nearest neighbor: BONHAM MIDDLE, around 0.6 miles off. Counting just inside five miles, 8 other public schools cluster around CATER EL. On composite proficiency, CATER EL comes 7th of 7 in the immediate cluster, beneath the nearby-schools average of 41.6%.

The campus sits in a downtown setting.

Over the past 6-year window. Looking back 6 years, enrollment at CATER EL has contracted 7%, going from 334 students in 2018 to 309 in 2024. Hispanic enrollment moved from 35% to 43% across the same window. Class-load math has fell: from 15.8:1 in 2018 to 13.9:1 in 2024.

On allk12, members of the CATER EL community share and discuss open house dates, ride-share offers, and field-trip permission slips. Anyone with firsthand experience at this school can post or comment.