The top reported proficiency rate is 74% in Math.
Original Research by School Decision on Cedar Heights Elementary School
Cedar Heights Elementary School serves students in preschool through sixth grade in Cedar Falls, Iowa, as part of the Cedar Falls Community School District. It is a regular public school with a sizable enrollment for its grade band. The student body is predominantly white, with smaller shares of students who identify as two or more races, Black, Hispanic, Asian, and Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander. A substantial share of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, which gives a sense of the economic mix families will find here.
On the 2024-25 Iowa Statewide Assessment of Student Progress, Cedar Heights posted proficiency rates in math, English language arts, and science that each fell in a broad range around the national typical level. The school’s strongest showing was in science, where the proficiency rate was a bit higher than in the other two subjects. In English language arts, roughly three-quarters of students met or exceeded the state’s proficiency standard, and in math the figure was very similar. When measured against other districts in Black Hawk County, the school’s overall proficiency index placed it in the bottom quartile. That is a soft spot worth noting. The county contains a handful of districts, and while Cedar Heights’ scores are not low in an absolute sense, they sit below the middle of that group. A parent may want to ask the school or district how this compares with the other elementary schools within Cedar Falls itself, since that is likely the more relevant peer group for families choosing between neighborhood schools.
Test participation rates were very high across all subjects, which means the reported results reflect nearly the entire student population. No trend data is available beyond the single year, so there is no basis to say whether performance is improving, holding steady, or declining. The school serves grades that are tested by the state, so this is not a gap created by untested grade levels; the data simply does not extend further back.
The school serves a conventional PK-6 span, so there is no graduation rate to report, and no high school course access or postsecondary readiness metrics apply at this level. Information on student services such as special education and English learner populations was not available in the data used here. A parent relying on these profiles should seek that information directly from the school to understand what supports are in place.
Housing in the area where the school sits is generally more expensive than the statewide typical home value and appreciably more so than the national median, reflecting the Cedar Falls market. Rents also run above the national average, and the area’s unemployment rate has been steady at a moderate level. The Cedar Falls Community School District did not have any major publicly reported changes such as bond measures, boundary shifts, or curriculum overhauls in the recent period covered by this research. The district appears to have operated in a fairly stable administrative and financial environment.
Cedar Heights looks like a solidly performing elementary school in a stable district, with academic results that are decent on their own terms but below the top tier of neighboring districts. For a family that values a neighborhood school with a moderate level of economic diversity, a large enrollment for a K-6 building, and a setting in a city with elevated housing costs relative to the state, this is worth a closer look. The main open question a parent would want to investigate is how the school compares to the other elementaries in the Cedar Falls district, since the county-level comparison may be less useful for a school that draws from a single attendance zone.
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