Yelm Prairie Elementary

Yelm Prairie Elementary operates as a mid-tier elementary school in Yelm, Washington, operated by Yelm School District. Current enrollment sits at 427 students spanning grades pre-K through 5.

Yelm School District comprises 10 schools with combined enrollment of 5,671 students; Yelm Prairie Elementary is among them.

For racial and ethnic makeup, Yelm Prairie Elementary lists that 65% of the student body identifies as White; the rest reads as 23% Hispanic, 10% multiracial.

In terms of school funding signals, The school currently runs with 25 full-time-equivalent teachers, for a student-teacher ratio near 17.3:1. That tracks the state average closely. Roughly 50% of students at Yelm Prairie Elementary qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, which schools and policymakers use as a rough income-mix signal.

With demographic context factored in, Yelm Prairie Elementary tracks the demographic baseline. The model predicts 46.7% given the school's FRL share; actual proficiency is 48.3%.

Across the wider county, ACS estimates for Thurston County put median household earnings sit near $96,563, roughly 39% of adults have completed at least a four-year degree, and roughly 6% of residents live below the federal poverty line. In all, Thurston County runs 86 public schools (combined enrollment of about 44,412 students), of which Yelm Prairie Elementary is one.

The closest other public school is Fort Stevens Elementary, roughly 1.0 miles away. 8 of the 8 nearest public schools sit inside a five-mile radius. On composite proficiency, Yelm Prairie Elementary comes 4th of 8 in the immediate cluster, higher than the nearby-schools average of 47.7%.

The school occupies a town-center site.

Over the past 7-year window. Over the past 7-year window, the student count declined 8%: 465 students in 2018 compared to 427 in 2025. Over the same period, the White share ticked down from 71% to 65%. The student-to-teacher ratio pulled in from 18.3:1 in 2018 to 17.3:1 today.

On the community side, the feed for Yelm Prairie Elementary typically covers science fair prep, picture-day reminders, and bus-route questions. Anyone with firsthand experience at this school can post or comment.