Crabbe Elementary School, Ashland KY

Original Research by School Decision on Crabbe Elementary School

Crabbe Elementary School serves kindergarten through fifth grade as part of the Ashland Independent School District in the city of Ashland, Kentucky. Ashland is a mid-sized city on the Ohio River that has historically been an industrial and steel town, anchored by the now-shuttered AK Steel works. Its largest employer today is UK King’s Daughters hospital, and its population has seen a modest decline in recent years. The downtown core features cultural venues like the Paramount Arts Center and Central Park, while the city’s public schools are on separate campuses rather than embedded in the downtown center.

Crabbe is a regular public school and the only school in the district that serves elementary grades. Its enrollment is relatively small for a school covering kindergarten through fifth grade, and a substantial share of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, indicating that the school serves a population with significant economic need. The student body is majority white, with a notable share of students identifying as two or more races, and smaller shares of Hispanic and Black students.

On the Kentucky Summative Assessment, the school’s results present a mixed picture. In math, proficiency rates declined across successive grade levels, with the fifth-grade rate lower than the third-grade rate. In English language arts, the fourth-grade rate was stronger than the third-grade and fifth-grade rates. Science results for fourth grade and social studies results for fifth grade each fell below the school’s own averages in reading and math. Taken together, the school’s overall proficiency across tested subjects and grades sits below the midpoint among the three districts in Boyd County. A parent may want to discuss with the school how these patterns inform instruction, particularly the drop-off in math and the lower rates in science and social studies.

Because Crabbe is an elementary school, no graduation rate is reported, and the data did not include information on chronic absenteeism, discipline, staffing, or course access. The district brief turned up no recent changes to curriculum, boundaries, or programming that would alter the basic picture of a stable, traditional elementary school in a district that has seen little in the way of publicized shifts.

For a family considering Crabbe, the school is a neighborhood elementary in a historic Ohio River city, serving a community with above-average economic need. The academic results on state tests are a soft spot, particularly in upper-elementary math and in the tested science and social studies grades, and the school’s overall performance is near the bottom of the small set of districts in the county. A family looking for a small, local elementary with a high proportion of students receiving meal assistance and a building located in the city should find the basics here. Those wanting stronger test results, or more information about how the school supports students struggling in math and the content areas, would do well to ask the principal directly about intervention strategies and curriculum decisions. The school’s size and grade span mean a child could attend from kindergarten through fifth grade before moving on to a middle school within the district.

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Academic performance

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

Math

Grade 347%

School 47% · District 44% · ▲ 3 pts above district

▲ 4 pts above state median

Grade 437%

School 37% · District 44% · ▼ 7 pts below district

▼ 8 pts below state median · ▼ 12 pts below county median

Grade 532%

School 32% · District 42% · ▼ 10 pts below district

▼ 10 pts below state median · ▼ 8 pts below county median

English language arts

Grade 340%

School 40% · District 51% · ▼ 11 pts below district

▼ 7 pts below state median

Grade 457%

School 57% · District 47% · ▲ 10 pts above district

▲ 7 pts above state median · ▲ 9 pts above county median

Grade 551%

School 51% · District 52% · ▼ 1 pts below district

even with state median · ▲ 3 pts above county median

Science

Grade 430%

School 30% · District 31% · ▼ 1 pts below district

▼ 8 pts below state median

Social studies

Grade 529%

School 29% · District 37% · ▼ 8 pts below district

▼ 9 pts below state median · ▼ 7 pts below county median

This schoolAshland Independent, 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.