The top reported proficiency rate is 77% in Math. The lowest is 64% in Science.
Original Research by School Decision on Cairo Elementary School
Cairo Elementary School serves students from kindergarten through fifth grade and is part of the Henderson County school district in western Kentucky. The school is located on a state highway just outside the city of Henderson, a mix of residential, commercial, and industrial areas that sits on a bluff above the Ohio River and functions as the southernmost suburb of Evansville, Indiana. The local economy is a blend of manufacturing, agriculture, coal, and government employment.
The school’s enrollment is small for an elementary building serving six grade levels. The student body is predominantly white, with a modest share of students who identify as two or more races, a smaller Hispanic population, and an even smaller Black population. Nearly half of the students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, placing the school in a middle ground economically for its region, neither high-poverty nor affluent. Data on special populations, including students with disabilities and English learners, was not available in the records reviewed, so a parent may want to ask the school directly about those supports.
On state assessments, Cairo Elementary shows a clear strength in mathematics. Performance in math is well above what one typically sees at the elementary level, with strong proficiency rates across third, fourth, and fifth grades. Reading and language arts results are more mixed. Third and fourth graders posted solid proficiency rates, but the fifth-grade reading result was suppressed in the data, so no public figure is available for that grade in that subject. Science performance for fourth graders is respectable, and social studies for fifth graders is similarly solid. The overall academic picture is one where math is a clear standout, while literacy, while adequate in the lower grades, has an unknown outcome for the oldest tested group that a family may wish to discuss with the school.
The school operates as a regular public elementary and is not a charter or magnet. It does not serve high school grades, so there is no graduation rate to report, and the school is not evaluated on high school readiness metrics in the same way a secondary school would be. The locale is rural in feel, and the school building sits on a highway corridor that connects to the broader Henderson area.
Henderson itself offers a downtown riverfront with a play area, water park, trails, and boat docks, as well as a state park and museum dedicated to naturalist John James Audubon. The community is large enough to support a public transit system and a community college. Housing in the area is moderately priced compared to national benchmarks, and the overall cost of living is lower than the national average, which matters for families weighing school quality against affordability.
The district has been making several changes relevant to families with elementary-aged children. Henderson County has shifted to structured literacy practices grounded in the science of reading, with systematic phonics instruction and teacher training, so Cairo Elementary is part of that district-wide pedagogical change. The district has also invested in facility upgrades including roof replacements, HVAC improvements, and security upgrades across its schools. At the high school level, career and technical education pathways in advanced manufacturing, healthcare, and information technology have been expanded, though that is not directly relevant to Cairo Elementary students now, it signals the type of opportunities available after they leave this building.
Because the county has only one school district, there is no within-county comparison to other districts. That makes it harder to gauge how Cairo Elementary stacks up against nearby alternatives without looking across district lines into neighboring counties, a step a parent may want to take for a fuller picture.
Overall, this is an elementary school that performs well in math and adequately in most other subjects, set in a small-town environment with a manufacturing and agricultural economic base and a district that is actively working on literacy instruction and facility upgrades. The school fits a family looking for a small, rural-adjacent elementary experience where math achievement is a clear strength, and where the broader community offers modest cost of living and basic amenities without a fast-growth or highly competitive suburban dynamic.
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