Hawthorne Elementary

As a mid-sized elementary school in Madison, Wisconsin, Hawthorne Elementary teaches 360 students from grades pre-K through 5, one of the schools within Madison Metropolitan School District.

Madison Metropolitan School District comprises 53 schools with combined enrollment of 25,155 students; Hawthorne Elementary is among them.

Looking at the student body, Hawthorne Elementary reports that the most-represented group is Hispanic (33%), with the rest of the student body spread across multiple groups. Beyond that, the school lists 25% Black, 18% White, 12% multiracial, 11% Asian. By comparison, Dane County as a whole is about 8% Hispanic, so the school skews visibly more Hispanic than its surroundings.

Looking at school resources, Hawthorne Elementary lists 35 full-time-equivalent teachers, putting the student-to-teacher ratio at about 10.2:1. Statewide, the average ratio sits near 14.7:1, putting Hawthorne Elementary tighter than the state norm the norm. Roughly 67% of students at Hawthorne Elementary qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, a number frequently used as a low-income enrollment indicator. Set against Dane County (around 32%), the school's rate is meaningfully above typical.

On a residual basis (actual vs predicted given the student mix), Hawthorne Elementary performs roughly as the BeatsExpectations model predicts for a school with this FRL share. The predicted value is around 36.8%, the actual is 31.1%, a residual of -5.7 points.

Across the wider county, community-level numbers for Dane County indicate the typical household earns roughly $89,975 per year, roughly 55% of adults have completed at least a four-year degree, and census figures put the poverty rate at about 5%. Hawthorne Elementary is one of 169 public schools in Dane County (combined enrollment of about 78,525 students).

Nearest neighbor: Whitehorse Middle, around 1.4 miles off. 8 of the 8 nearest public schools sit inside a five-mile radius. Among the 8 schools in that immediate cluster with test data (this one included), Hawthorne Elementary ranks 6th on composite proficiency, below the local average of 39.6%.

The school occupies a high-density site.

Looking at the recent track record. Over the past 7-year window, the student count decreased 7%: 387 students in 2018 compared to 360 in 2025. The Hispanic share of enrollment increased from 27% to 33% over that span.

Inside the community feed, members of the Hawthorne Elementary community share and discuss classroom updates, athletics, and weather closures. Parents, students, alumni, and staff are welcome to weigh in.