The top reported proficiency rate is 37% in English language arts. The lowest is 23% in Math.
Original Research by School Decision on Taft Elementary School
Taft Elementary sits on Anderson Street in Boise, within the Boise Independent District, and serves pre-kindergarten through sixth grade. It is a regular public school, neither a charter nor a magnet, drawing from the surrounding residential neighborhoods of a city that functions as Idaho's capital and its largest population center. The school is small for its grade band, with roughly two to four dozen students per grade level, which gives it a compact feel where families are likely to know teachers and staff across years.
The student body reflects a mix that is uncommon in Idaho schools. Half of the students identify as White, with a substantial Black population, a notable Hispanic presence, and smaller Asian and multiracial groups. Nearly every student qualifies for free or reduced-price lunch, which places Taft among the highest-need schools in its district. The school does not report IEP or English-learner figures in the data available, so those populations cannot be characterized here. A parent with questions about special education services or language support would want to ask the school directly, since the data leaves that picture incomplete.
On state assessments, Taft's results paint a mixed and sometimes thin picture. In math, the proficiency rates that are reported sit well below what the state targets, with only a fraction of tested students reaching proficient or above in the grades where clean numbers are available. Several grade-level results come back as suppressed ranges rather than precise figures, which is common when subgroup sizes are small or when reporting rules kick in to protect student privacy. In English language arts, the one grade with a clean reported rate shows a moderate share of students reaching proficiency, while the remaining grades appear as ranges. Science results for the tested grade are also reported as a range. These suppressed figures do not signal weak performance by themselves; they reflect the realities of a small school where exact counts could identify individual children. Still, the results that are available suggest that many students are working below grade-level benchmarks, particularly in math. A parent may want to look into how the school supports students who are behind and what intervention or tutoring structures exist.
The broader community context matters here. Boise is a city of government, technology, and education, with major employers like Micron Technology, Albertsons, and Boise Cascade alongside Boise State University and state government. The Boise River Greenbelt runs through the city, connecting parks and neighborhoods, and the downtown core concentrates cultural and civic life in a walkable corridor. Outside that core, the city becomes more auto-oriented, with established residential areas giving way to foothills subdivisions. The metro area has grown steadily, driven in part by technology investment, and Taft sits within that growth context on the western side of the city.
Housing in the school's zip code runs above both the state and national benchmarks for typical home values, with values showing a slight recent dip. Renting is considerably more affordable than buying at current mortgage rates, which may shape who lives in the attendance area. The price-to-income ratio sits well above the national midpoint, meaning ownership is a stretch for many families in this area. Rents have crept up modestly. For a family considering the neighborhood, the rental market offers a more accessible entry point than purchasing.
The district brief returned little on recent parent-relevant changes, so there is nothing to report on strategic shifts, program launches, or boundary adjustments that might affect families at Taft.
What Taft appears to be is a small, high-poverty neighborhood school serving a racially diverse student body within a growing capital city. Its academic results, where they can be read clearly, indicate real challenges in moving students to proficiency, especially in math. The school's small size and community setting could be assets for families who value close relationships and individual attention, and its diversity is a genuine characteristic of the school experience. The academic picture suggests a parent would benefit from asking specific questions about instructional support, intervention programs, and how the school plans to strengthen outcomes in the years ahead.
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