McKinley Elementary

McKinley Elementary operates as a moderately sized primary school in Appleton, Wisconsin, part of Appleton Area School District. Current enrollment sits at 380 students spanning grades pre-K through 5.

Across the 38 schools in Appleton Area School District (14,994 students total), McKinley Elementary accounts for its share of the district's footprint.

Looking at the student body, McKinley Elementary logs that the largest single group is White at 50%, but no single group is in the majority. Other groups include 21% Hispanic, 18% Asian, 6% multiracial, 4% Black. By comparison, Calumet County as a whole is about 88% White, so the school skews meaningfully less White than its surroundings.

Looking at school resources, On paper, McKinley Elementary has 32 full-time-equivalent teachers, translating to a class-load average of around 11.9:1. That figure is tighter than the state norm's 14.7:1 average. About 49% of enrolled students meet the income threshold for free or reduced-price lunch, often used as a Title I proxy. By comparison, Calumet County runs at roughly 30%, so the school's eligibility rate is meaningfully above the surrounding baseline.

Adjusting for the school's free-and-reduced-lunch share, McKinley Elementary performs roughly as the BeatsExpectations model predicts for a school with this FRL share. The predicted value is around 47.3%, the actual is 43.9%, a residual of -3.4 points.

In the surrounding community, ACS estimates for Calumet County put median household income runs about $88,810, about 33% of the adult population holds a bachelor's degree or above, and roughly 5% of residents live below the federal poverty line. Across Calumet County's 22 public schools (combined enrollment of about 6,846 students), McKinley Elementary is one campus in the mix.

Nearest neighbor: Madison Middle, around 0.3 miles off. 8 of the 8 nearest public schools sit inside a five-mile radius. On composite proficiency, McKinley Elementary comes 7th of 8 in the immediate cluster, behind the nearby-schools average of 53.8%.

Geographically, the school is in a city-core area.

Trend over the last 7 years. McKinley Elementary's enrollment has ticked down 31% since 2018, when it stood at 550 (now 380). Over the same period, the White share shrank from 55% to 50%. Class-load math has pulled in: from 14.0:1 in 2018 to 11.9:1 in 2025.

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