Dolgeville Elementary School, Dolgeville NY

Original Research by School Decision on Dolgeville Elementary School

Dolgeville Elementary School serves prekindergarten through sixth grade in a small rural village straddling Herkimer and Fulton counties, east of Utica. The school is one building within the Dolgeville Central School District's single unified K-12 campus and enrolls about four-thirds of its population. The enrollment is roughly evenly split across grades, with a substantial share of students qualifying for free or reduced-price lunch. The student population is predominantly white, with very small representation of other racial and ethnic groups.

The school's recent state test results in math and English language arts show proficiency well below state and regional norms. In the most recent administration, math proficiency ranged from about one in five students to about one in two, depending on grade, while ELA proficiency rates ran even lower, with some grades showing only about one in ten students scoring at proficient levels. Science and the one available historical social studies result paint a mixed picture. The comparison positioning this school relative to other districts in Herkimer County places it in the bottom quartile for overall proficiency across tested subjects and grades.

A parent considering this school would want to look into the specific supports and interventions the school is deploying to address these performance gaps, and what trajectory the school is on from year to year. Underlying patterns in the participation rates also warrant attention: some upper grades show notably lower participation in state assessments, which can affect how representative the reported figures are.

The district's recent history offers some context. After operating under severe fiscal pressure around 2019 and 2020, when it faced a major budget deficit and operated on a contingency budget, the district has stabilized. Since 2021 it has held annual tax increases at the state cap and approved a series of capital projects beginning in 2022 that addressed aging infrastructure: HVAC, roofing, masonry, emergency power, and a new synthetic turf field. Voters authorized additional facilities work through 2025, including kitchen and bathroom modernization. These investments signal district commitment to the physical plant families' children use daily, though they do not directly address academic programming.

Dolgeville itself is a historically industrial village built around former shoe and felt factories, now a low-cost, blue-collar residential community with an aging pre-World War II housing stock. Population has been slowly declining. The village is pursuing downtown revitalization through a state-funded NY Forward program, with adaptive reuse of the former Daniel Green factory complex and planned improvements to Main Street. A public library sits on North Main Street and offers WiFi, programs, and community space. The broader area is car-dependent, with minimal public transit. Home prices in the zip code are well below state and national benchmarks, making it an affordable housing market for families.

The school's location is slightly off the downtown core rather than directly in it, near but not on Main Street. Families should understand that this is a school in a community working through slow population decline and economic transition, where the district has moved past a budget crisis into deliberate infrastructure renewal and where academic performance data point to a school that needs close watching on achievement trends and the substance of its improvement efforts.

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Academic performance

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

Math

Grade 333%

School 33% · District 33%

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

Grade 446%

School 46% · District 45% · ▲ 1 pts above district

▼ 12 pts below state median · even with county median

Grade 520%

School 20% · District 20%

▼ 31 pts below state median · ▼ 22 pts below county median

Grade 635%

School 35% · District 34% · ▲ 1 pts above district

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

English language arts

Grade 328%

School 28% · District 28%

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

Grade 421%

School 21% · District 21%

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

Grade 512%

School 12% · District 12%

▼ 42 pts below state median · ▼ 30 pts below county median

Grade 621%

School 21% · District 21% · ▲ 1 pts above district

▼ 24 pts below state median · ▼ 21 pts below county median

Science

Grade 532%

School 32% · District 31% · ▲ 1 pts above district

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

Social studies

Grade 571%

School 71% · district not reported

▼ 21 pts below state median

This schoolDOLGEVILLE CENTRAL SCHOOL DISTRICT, 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-income19%Higher-income37%19 pp gap

Grade 4Lower-income17%Higher-income27%11 pp gap

Grade 5Lower-income11%Higher-income13%2 pp gap

Grade 6Lower-income12%Higher-income38%26 pp gap

Mathematics

Grade 3Lower-income23%Higher-income42%19 pp gap

Grade 4Lower-income33%Higher-income64%30 pp gap

Grade 5Lower-income13%Higher-income29%16 pp gap

Grade 6Lower-income20%Higher-income60%40 pp gap