The top reported proficiency rate is 76% in Math. The lowest is 55% in English language arts.
Original Research by School Decision on Olin Elementary School
Olin Elementary School serves the small rural community of Olin in Jones County, Iowa, as part of the Olin Consolidated School District. The town sits on Highway 38 between Iowa City, Cedar Rapids, Davenport, and Dubuque, with the Wapsipinicon River along its borders. Olin is a very compact place with limited commercial activity; the largest local industries are administrative services, construction, and retail trade. The district itself went through a major change years ago when the school board voted to close the junior and senior high school, sending those students to Anamosa under a whole-grade sharing agreement. That makes Olin Elementary the district’s sole remaining school, serving prekindergarten through sixth grade.
The school has a small enrollment, typical for a very small rural district. The student body is predominantly white, with a modest share of students from other racial backgrounds. About half of the students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, a figure that reflects the area’s economic profile. The school’s grade span runs from PK through sixth, so there is no graduation rate to report, and the school does not serve older grades.
State testing results are available for math and English language arts. In math, a strong majority of students scored at the proficient level or above on the Iowa Statewide Assessment of Student Progress. In English language arts, the share of students reaching proficiency was more moderate. Science results for the tested grade range were suppressed for data privacy, which is common in very small schools where small group sizes can reveal individual student information. When compared with other districts in Jones County, Olin’s overall proficiency across tested subjects fell below the midpoint of the four-district set. Because only one year of assessment data is available for the school, no trend can be determined.
The district brief turned up no recent parent-relevant changes such as referendums, curriculum shifts, or property tax adjustments. The locale brief indicates that Olin’s population growth has been very slow to stagnant. Housing values in the area are modest relative to state and national benchmarks, and the local economy does not feature a single large employer; many residents likely commute to nearby cities for work. The community has a downtown area, parks, river access, and an annual jamboree, but there is no public transit system and walkability is limited by the town’s size and rural layout.
Civil rights data, discipline incidents, course access offerings, staffing ratios, and attendance metrics were not available in the data provided, so those dimensions cannot be characterized here.
Olin Elementary is a clear fit for families who want a very small, community-oriented elementary school in a rural Iowa setting. Parents should be aware that students will need to transfer to a different district for middle and high school under the current sharing agreement. The academic picture shows a school with a clear strength in math and more variable performance in reading, and the county-level comparison places the school below the middle of the pack among its few peers, which is worth exploring further with the district if a family wants more detail on how instruction is structured and what supports are in place.
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