Elkhorn Elementary School, Frankfort KY

Original Research by School Decision on Elkhorn Elementary School

Elkhorn Elementary School is a regular public school in Frankfort, Kentucky, serving first through fifth grade. It is part of the Franklin County school district. The school is located on East Main Street, placing it in the older part of the city rather than in the more suburban East or West Frankfort neighborhoods.

The student body is predominantly white, with a Hispanic population as the next largest group, followed by Black students and a smaller share of students who identify as two or more races. A substantial majority of students come from low-income households, as measured by free or reduced-price meal eligibility. This is a school with a high level of economic need.

On the 2024-25 Kentucky Summative Assessment, proficiency rates at Elkhorn sit below what many families would consider strong. In math, the share of students scoring proficient or above declined across the grades: third grade posted a rate around half, fourth grade dropped below half, and fifth grade landed below two-fifths. In English language arts, the pattern was similar. Third grade posted a rate near half, while fourth and fifth grade rates both fell below a third. Fourth grade science and fifth grade social studies results were also below a third of students reaching proficiency. When its overall performance across subjects and grades is compared to other districts in Franklin County, Elkhorn Elementary falls in the lowest quarter. A parent may want to ask the school about the specific academic interventions in place, particularly for the upper elementary grades where the numbers soften further.

This is an elementary school, so there is no graduation rate and no high school course access data to review. Information on discipline, staffing levels, chronic absenteeism, and special education or English learner populations was not available in the data, leaving those dimensions of the school's environment uncharacterized. The district brief turned up no publicly reported, parent-relevant changes in Franklin County Schools from recent years, so that context is absent as well.

Frankfort itself is a small state capital whose economy is dominated by state government and manufacturing, including bourbon distilling. Downtown is walkable and anchored by historic government buildings and Kentucky State University, while the East and West sides are more auto-oriented residential and commercial areas. The housing market in the zip code covering the school shows home values roughly in line with the Kentucky state benchmark. Rent is a meaningful but not outsized share of a typical national median income. The housing picture is typical for a mid-sized Kentucky city with a steady, government-led economy.

What a family gets at Elkhorn Elementary is a regular public elementary school in a capital-city setting marked by moderate home prices and a high-need student population, with academic proficiency numbers that are softer than those of the other district in the county. The school has not posted data on several common quality indicators, including chronic absenteeism. For families considering this school, a direct conversation with the principal about the academic support framework, class sizes, and how the school addresses the needs of its economically disadvantaged students would be a practical next step.

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Academic performance

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

Math

Grade 349%

School 49% · District 47% · ▲ 2 pts above district

▲ 6 pts above state median

Grade 441%

School 41% · District 47% · ▼ 6 pts below district

▼ 4 pts below state median

Grade 537%

School 37% · District 40% · ▼ 3 pts below district

▼ 5 pts below state median

English language arts

Grade 348%

School 48% · District 44% · ▲ 4 pts above district

▲ 1 pts above state median

Grade 430%

School 30% · District 46% · ▼ 16 pts below district

▼ 20 pts below state median

Grade 531%

School 31% · District 46% · ▼ 15 pts below district

▼ 20 pts below state median

Science

Grade 433%

School 33% · District 35% · ▼ 2 pts below district

▼ 5 pts below state median

Social studies

Grade 530%

School 30% · District 37% · ▼ 7 pts below district

▼ 8 pts below state median

This schoolFranklin 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-income53%7 pp gap

Grade 4Lower-income23%Higher-income53%30 pp gap

Grade 5Lower-income22%Higher-income58%36 pp gap

Mathematics

Grade 3Lower-income50%Higher-income47%3 pp gap

Grade 4Lower-income36%Higher-income59%23 pp gap

Grade 5Lower-income30%Higher-income58%28 pp gap