Oak Grove Elementary School, Bessemer AL

Original Research by School Decision on Oak Grove Elementary School

Oak Grove Elementary School serves students from pre-kindergarten through fifth grade in Bessemer, Alabama, as part of the Jefferson County school system. With an enrollment of a size that is substantial for an elementary school serving only those grades, the student body is overwhelmingly white, with very small shares of Black, Hispanic, and multiracial students. A substantial share of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, placing the school in a middle ground where economic diversity exists but is not the dominant trait.

The school is located in a city that was once a steelmaking powerhouse and has since rebuilt its economy around distribution, healthcare, and manufacturing. Bessemer has seen its population decline over time, and the city’s built environment is spread out and car-dependent. Major employers like Amazon, Medical West Hospital, and a set of industrial firms anchor the local economy. Housing in the ZIP code covering the school is moderately priced relative to state and national benchmarks, and rents are also below national medians, meaning the area is relatively affordable for families. A parent reading this should know the immediate context is a mid-sized city with a history of economic transition, not a fast-growing suburb.

Academically, Oak Grove’s state test results present a mixed profile. In English language arts, the school performs at a level that is solid for an elementary school, with the strongest results in fifth grade and respectable shares of students meeting proficiency in third and fourth grades. In math, the picture is more uneven. Third and fourth grade proficiency rates are in a moderate range, while fifth grade math proficiency is stronger, meaning that as students progress through the upper grades, the school’s math outcomes improve. Science is an area of clear weakness. Only a modest share of fourth graders, which is the grade in which the state tests science at the elementary level, reached proficiency. A parent interested in how the school approaches science instruction may want to ask about curriculum and support.

When placed against other schools within Jefferson County, Oak Grove sits above the midpoint in overall proficiency across tested subjects and grades. This means it performs better than many of the county’s elementary schools but is not among the highest-performing. The county comparison set includes a wide range of schools, and Oak Grove is functionally in the upper half of that range. Because the school serves only grades PK through five, there is no graduation rate to report, and chronic absenteeism data was not available.

The district itself, Jefferson County, is a large system. The district brief turned up no recent major changes or initiatives to report, which means a parent would want to check directly with the district or school for any current developments in programming or leadership.

Program offerings beyond the core curriculum were not available in the data. The school’s website may provide details on enrichment, special education services, English learner support, and extracurricular options, but those were not part of the record here. A family deciding whether Oak Grove fits should consider the following. The academic picture shows a school that does well in English and has a math program that strengthens by fifth grade, but science results are soft. The student body is not racially diverse, and the school serves a community that is economically mixed but with a notable share of low-income households. For a family that values a stable, moderately performing elementary school in an affordable, car-dependent city with a working-class and industrial heritage, this is a plausible option. A family whose priority is strong early science instruction or a more diverse peer environment would want to investigate further.

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Academic performance

How students perform on state tests, by grade, set against the district.

Math

Grade 347%

School 47% · District 31% · ▲ 16 pts above district

▲ 4 pts above state median · ▲ 15 pts above county median

Grade 443%

School 43% · District 31% · ▲ 12 pts above district

▲ 6 pts above state median · ▲ 17 pts above county median

Grade 555%

School 55% · District 28% · ▲ 27 pts above district

▲ 22 pts above state median · ▲ 30 pts above county median

English language arts

Grade 362%

School 62% · District 53% · ▲ 9 pts above district

▼ 3 pts below state median · ▲ 8 pts above county median

Grade 451%

School 51% · District 53% · ▼ 2 pts below district

▼ 7 pts below state median · even with county median

Grade 567%

School 67% · District 59% · ▲ 8 pts above district

even with state median · ▲ 10 pts above county median

Science

Grade 429%

School 29% · District 33% · ▼ 4 pts below district

▼ 9 pts below state median · ▲ 4 pts above county median

This schoolJefferson County, same grade

Graduation rate (ACGR) reflects the federally published Adjusted Cohort Graduation Rate for the most recent year available. We refresh this data annually at the close of each academic year in June. The federal source publishes a banded rate (for example, "90-94%") instead of an exact number for cohorts small enough to risk identifying individual students. The state distribution chart, where shown, plots every school in the state with a published rate or band; schools whose rate is federally suppressed are excluded. Where the federal source publishes a band rather than an exact rate, the school is placed within its band using a stable, ID-derived offset, so its position is consistent across visits.

Proficiency by household income

English language arts

Grade 3Lower-income65%Higher-income59%6 pp gap

Grade 4Lower-income43%Higher-income57%14 pp gap

Grade 5Lower-income60%Higher-income71%11 pp gap

Mathematics

Grade 3Lower-income43%Higher-income52%10 pp gap

Grade 4Lower-income34%Higher-income49%15 pp gap

Grade 5Lower-income49%Higher-income59%10 pp gap