Ponderosa Elementary

Ponderosa Elementary is an elementary school of medium-sized scale in Spokane Valley, Washington, part of Central Valley School District, enrolling 344 students in grades pre-K through 5.

Central Valley School District comprises 33 schools with combined enrollment of 15,087 students; Ponderosa Elementary is among them.

Looking at the student body, Ponderosa Elementary shows that White students make up the majority at 76%. The remainder comes out to 9% Hispanic, 8% multiracial, 3% Black, 2% Native American.

Looking at school resources, The school reports having 25 full-time-equivalent teachers, for a student-teacher ratio near 14.0:1. The state averages around 17.3:1, so this campus is tighter than the state norm typical. An estimated 42% of students are eligible for free or reduced-price lunch, a commonly cited indicator of low-income enrollment. By comparison, Spokane County runs at roughly 52%, so the school's eligibility rate is somewhat below the surrounding baseline.

On a residual basis (actual vs predicted given the student mix), Ponderosa Elementary tracks the demographic baseline. The model predicts 52.1% given the school's FRL share; actual proficiency is 62.9%.

In the broader community, community-level numbers for Spokane County indicate median household earnings sit near $78,582, about 33% of the adult population holds a bachelor's degree or above, and census figures put the poverty rate at about 7%. Across Spokane County's 187 public schools (combined enrollment of about 76,588 students), Ponderosa Elementary is one campus in the mix.

Chester Elementary School is the nearest neighboring public school, about 1.4 miles from this campus. 8 of the 8 nearest public schools sit inside a five-mile radius. On composite proficiency, Ponderosa Elementary comes 2nd of 9 in the immediate cluster, above the nearby-schools average of 49.7%.

Ponderosa Elementary operates from an urban location.

Five-year trend. Ponderosa Elementary's enrollment has edged down 19% since 2018, when it stood at 427 (now 344). White enrollment moved from 86% to 76% across the same window.

On this page, posts here usually surface around sports schedules, lunch menu changes, and school spirit week. Posting is open to anyone connected to the school.