WAELDER SCHOOL

WAELDER SCHOOL is a cozy all-grades campus in WAELDER, Texas, overseen by WAELDER ISD. The school teaches 302 students in grades pre-K through 12. Enrollment runs roughly 38% below the state mean of about 485.

WAELDER ISD is the operating authority for WAELDER SCHOOL, handling staffing, calendars, and reporting to the state department of education.

In terms of who attends, WAELDER SCHOOL logs that the student body is overwhelmingly Hispanic (86%). Other groups include 8% White, 5% Black. That is considerably more Hispanic than the county at large, where the share is closer to 51%.

Looking at the economic backdrop, The school currently runs with 32 full-time-equivalent teachers, for a student-teacher ratio near 9.5:1. That figure is tighter than the state norm's 11.7:1 average. An estimated 90% of students are eligible for free or reduced-price lunch, a number frequently used as a low-income enrollment indicator. Set against Gonzales County (around 76%), the school's rate is meaningfully above typical.

After controlling for student poverty, On a poverty-adjusted basis, WAELDER SCHOOL sits in the bottom 10% statewide. Predicted proficiency from the FRL regression is roughly 34.6%; actual is 19.6%, a gap of -14.9 points.

Across the wider county, ACS estimates for Gonzales County put the typical household earns roughly $58,672 per year, roughly 12% of adults have completed at least a four-year degree, and the poverty rate sits near 15%. In all, Gonzales County runs 15 public schools (combined enrollment of about 3,908 students), of which WAELDER SCHOOL is one.

FLATONIA SECONDARY is the nearest neighboring public school, about 11.9 miles from this campus. Ranking that nearby cluster on reported proficiency puts WAELDER SCHOOL at 8th of 8; the average score across the group is 52.4%.

The school occupies a countryside site.

Trend over the last 7 years. Over the past 7-year window, the student count contracted 6%: 321 students in 2018 compared to 302 in 2025. Over the same period, the Black share contracted from 13% to 5%. Class-load math has tightened: from 10.7:1 in 2018 to 9.5:1 in 2025.

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