Picadome Elementary School, Lexington KY

Original Research by School Decision on Picadome Elementary School

Picadome Elementary School serves students from preschool through fifth grade in Lexington, a consolidated city-county that blends the University of Kentucky’s flagship campus with the thoroughbred horse industry, a growing bourbon district, and suburban neighborhoods governed by the nation’s first urban growth boundary. The school sits on Harrodsburg Road in an older part of the city, and its enrollment is diverse. The student body includes a mix of racial and ethnic backgrounds, with a substantial share of students qualifying for free or reduced-price lunch.

The school offers a regular public school program, meaning it follows the standard curriculum of Fayette County Public Schools without a magnet or charter designation. Academic performance on the Kentucky Summative Assessment shows a pattern worth noting. In English language arts, third and fourth graders hit proficiency at rates that are solid, but fifth graders dropped noticeably, with roughly a third reaching the proficient level. Math results followed a similar shape: fourth graders posted the strongest showing, while third and fifth graders landed lower. Science proficiency among fourth graders was moderate, and social studies among fifth graders was the lowest of all tested areas. A parent may want to ask the school how it supports students as they move into the upper elementary grades, given the drop-off in both reading and math by fifth grade.

The school does not serve high school grades, so there is no graduation rate to report. Data on special education and English learner populations was not available, meaning a parent who needs information on those supports should request it directly from the school. The same goes for chronic absenteeism, discipline, and staffing ratios, none of which were part of the available data.

Picadome Elementary is part of Fayette County Public Schools. The district operates across Lexington, a city where the University of Kentucky is the largest employer and where the horse industry, healthcare, and the bourbon sector anchor the economy. The city’s urban growth boundary, the first of its kind in the nation, channels new development into a defined service area, preserving the surrounding horse farms and rural landscape. Housing in the school’s ZIP code carries values and rents that are moderately higher than the Kentucky state benchmark, and the area has seen price growth over the past year.

Because Fayette County is the only district in the county, there is no comparison set of neighboring districts to position Picadome’s proficiency results against. What can be said is that the school serves a largely urban-suburban population, with an economic profile where a majority of families qualify for income-based meal assistance.

For a family considering this school, the central takeaway is that Picadome Elementary offers a standard elementary program in a mixed-income, racially diverse setting within Lexington’s urban growth boundary. Academic results are strongest in the middle elementary years in reading, with a clear soft spot in fifth grade across subjects that warrants a closer look. The school’s location on Harrodsburg Road places it in a long-established part of the city, with convenient access to the university area and downtown. Parents seeking a detailed picture of special education services, English learner support, or school climate should follow up with the school directly, as those data points were not in the available record.

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Academic performance

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

Math

Grade 334%

School 34% · District 45% · ▼ 11 pts below district

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

Grade 443%

School 43% · District 49% · ▼ 6 pts below district

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

Grade 528%

School 28% · District 49% · ▼ 21 pts below district

▼ 14 pts below state median · ▼ 20 pts below county median

English language arts

Grade 351%

School 51% · District 50% · ▲ 1 pts above district

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

Grade 454%

School 54% · District 53% · ▲ 1 pts above district

▲ 4 pts above state median · ▲ 5 pts above county median

Grade 532%

School 32% · District 53% · ▼ 21 pts below district

▼ 19 pts below state median · ▼ 20 pts below county median

Science

Grade 435%

School 35% · District 40% · ▼ 5 pts below district

▼ 3 pts below state median · ▲ 3 pts above county median

Social studies

Grade 522%

School 22% · District 43% · ▼ 21 pts below district

▼ 16 pts below state median · ▼ 19 pts below county median

This schoolFayette County, 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.

Proficiency by household income

English language arts

Grade 3Lower-income46%Higher-income67%21 pp gap

Grade 4Lower-income33%Higher-income79%46 pp gap

Grade 5Lower-income20%Higher-income63%43 pp gap

Mathematics

Grade 4Lower-income25%Higher-income66%41 pp gap

Grade 5Lower-income16%Higher-income58%42 pp gap