Townsend Street Elementary

Townsend Street Elementary is a tight-knit primary school in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, run under Milwaukee School District. The school enrolls 257 students in grades pre-K through 8. That puts it 20% leaner than the typical public school in Wisconsin, which averages around 323 students.

Milwaukee School District comprises 155 schools with combined enrollment of 65,835 students; Townsend Street Elementary is among them.

On demographics, Townsend Street Elementary logs that 86% of students identify as Black, making the school strongly Black-majority. Beyond that, the school lists 7% multiracial, 4% Hispanic. By comparison, Milwaukee County as a whole is about 26% Black, so the school skews visibly more Black than its surroundings.

In terms of school funding signals, Townsend Street Elementary lists 16 full-time-equivalent teachers, putting the student-to-teacher ratio at about 16.1:1. The state averages around 14.7:1, so this campus is higher than the state norm typical. Roughly 94% of students at Townsend Street Elementary qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, a commonly cited indicator of low-income enrollment. That share is above Milwaukee County's rate of about 64%.

On a residual basis (actual vs predicted given the student mix), Townsend Street Elementary tracks the demographic baseline. The model predicts 20.1% given the school's FRL share; actual proficiency is 6.3%.

Zooming out to the county, Milwaukee County reports that median household earnings sit near $64,435, about 35% of the adult population holds a bachelor's degree or above, and roughly 13% of residents live below the federal poverty line. In all, Milwaukee County runs 284 public schools (combined enrollment of about 122,496 students), of which Townsend Street Elementary is one.

Nearest neighbor: Fifty-Third Street Elementary, around 0.6 miles off. Counting just inside five miles, 8 other public schools cluster around Townsend Street Elementary. Among the 9 schools in that immediate cluster with test data (this one included), Townsend Street Elementary ranks 8th on composite proficiency, below the local average of 11.7%.

Townsend Street Elementary operates from a downtown location.

Five-year trend. Townsend Street Elementary's enrollment has contracted 23% since 2018, when it stood at 333 (now 257). The Black share of enrollment declined from 95% to 86% over that span. Class-load math has tightened: from 27.5:1 in 2018 to 16.1:1 in 2025.

On allk12, recent activity here tends to focus on school events, parent volunteer needs, and clubs. Members of the school community can share what they know.