The top reported proficiency rate is 9% in English language arts. The lowest is 4% in Math.
Original Research by School Decision on Ketcham Es
Ketcham Elementary sits on 15th Street Southeast in Washington, a regular public school in the District of Columbia Public Schools system serving prekindergarten through fifth grade. The enrollment is small for an elementary school, with students spread fairly evenly across the early childhood and elementary grades. The student body is almost entirely Black, with a small Hispanic presence and virtually no white or Asian students. This is a school whose composition reflects the surrounding Anacostia-side neighborhood rather than the broader, more diverse city that public reporting describes Washington as being.
Academically, the most recent state assessment results are sobering. In the 2024-25 school year, the share of students meeting or exceeding expectations in math was very low, and in English language arts the proficiency rate was also low though slightly above the math figure. A separate science result from an earlier year for fifth graders was similarly low. These are not middling numbers that a strong cohort could pull up in a year or two. They reflect a persistent gap between where students are performing and where the state expects them to be. A parent considering Ketcham would want to ask the school directly what interventions are in place, how individual student growth is tracked, and what the school's plan is for moving these results. The data we received does not include multi-year trend lines, so we cannot say whether performance is improving, holding steady, or declining over time.
Several pieces of information a parent might reasonably expect are simply absent from the data we received. Free or reduced-price lunch figures were not reported, so we cannot characterize the economic need level of the student body from the data, though the neighborhood's housing market gives an indirect signal. Individualized education program counts and English learner counts were also missing. There is no discipline data, no staffing or class-size information, no attendance figures, and no course or program offerings listed. Without these, it is hard to assess the school's support infrastructure or what enrichment a child would encounter day to day. We are naming these gaps rather than guessing at them.
The housing context around Ketcham's zip code tells a story of relative affordability within an expensive city. Typical home values in this area sit well below the District of Columbia as a whole, and closer to the national benchmark than to the city's higher-priced areas. Home values in the area have been declining recently, while rents have been rising. For a family weighing a purchase, the monthly cost of ownership at current mortgage rates would exceed the cost of renting by a wide margin in this zip code, which may push some families toward renting. The broader Washington economy, publicly reported as anchored by federal employment and a large commuter population, provides a stable regional job market, but the immediate neighborhood around the school is on the lower-cost side of that market.
Within DCPS, a few parent-relevant changes are worth noting. The district implemented a new cell phone restriction for the 2025-2026 school year, tied to district legislation, aimed at reducing distractions during the school day. This applies across all DCPS schools including Ketcham. The district's current strategic plan, running through 2028, focuses on academic success, student connectedness, and post-secondary preparation. Also of local interest, DCPS opened a new middle school addition at Leckie Education Campus in Ward 8 in early 2026, expanding middle-grade capacity in Southeast Washington, which may matter to Ketcham families thinking ahead about the transition after fifth grade.
What the data paints is a small, community-rooted elementary school serving a nearly entirely Black student body in a Southeast Washington neighborhood where housing is more affordable than most of the city, but where current academic outcomes are very low across reading, math, and science. The missing data on staffing, programs, discipline, and student support services limits what can be said about the school's internal environment. A family considering Ketcham would benefit from visiting the school, asking about academic improvement strategies, and understanding what the transition path looks like into the nearby middle-grade options that DCPS is investing in.
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