Orenda Elementary School, Clifton Park NY

Original Research by School Decision on Orenda Elementary School

Orenda Elementary serves kindergarten through fifth grade in Clifton Park, a suburban town in Saratoga County north of Albany, as one of the neighborhood elementary schools within the Shenendehowa Central School District. Most Shenendehowa facilities sit on a large consolidated campus, but Orenda is among the handful of elementary buildings located separately in the surrounding neighborhoods.

The academic picture here is genuinely strong in the early grades and warrants closer attention in fifth grade. On the New York State Testing Program, third graders at Orenda scored at high proficiency levels in both math and ELA, among the strongest results you would expect to see at any elementary school. Fourth grade remained well above the midpoint in both subjects. Fifth grade tells a different story: proficiency in both math and ELA fell to roughly the majority-or-just-below range, and fifth-grade science results were weaker still, with fewer than half of tested students reaching proficiency. The overall proficiency index across all tested subjects and grades places Orenda in the top quartile relative to districts in Saratoga County, so the school's aggregate standing is strong, but the fifth-grade dip is real and a parent would be reasonable to ask the school directly about what accounts for it and what supports are in place that year. Trend data across multiple years was not available, so it is not clear whether this pattern is recent or longstanding.

Enrollment sits at a comfortable size for its grade band, spread fairly evenly across grades. The student body is predominantly white, with Hispanic students making up the next largest share, followed by students identifying as two or more races and Asian students. A relatively small share of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, which reflects Clifton Park's generally affluent suburban character. Data on English learner rates and students with IEPs was not reported, so those aspects of the school's support environment are not captured here.

One family-relevant structural change: Shenendehowa has moved kindergarten out of the neighborhood elementary schools and into a centralized early learning center called Atrea, located at a separate site. This means incoming kindergartners do not start at Orenda; they spend their kindergarten year at the district facility before joining their neighborhood school in first grade. The full-day program at Atrea replaced what was publicly reported to be a long-running half-day arrangement, and the district provides transportation from students' homes. Families new to the district should factor that into their planning, since the Orenda experience effectively begins in first grade.

On the district's fiscal side, recent budgets for both the current and prior school years failed on their first community votes before passing on subsequent ballots, publicly reported as a reflection of rising health insurance and benefit costs pressing against the state tax cap. The approved budget for the coming year draws on reserve accounts to manage those pressures. Families weighing a purchase in the Orenda attendance zone should look at this pattern alongside Saratoga County's generally active housing market, where home values sit above both state and national medians and have been appreciating. Rents in the area are also rising, though they remain below what a comparable mortgage payment would run. New construction continues in Clifton Park subdivisions, and mixed-use development is expanding near the town's commercial center off the Northway.

Clifton Park itself is auto-dependent by design; daily errands and school pickup both rely on a car for most residents. The town is actively working to add walkable infrastructure along its main commercial corridor, with construction publicly reported for 2026, but that project does not change the neighborhood character around Orenda in the near term. The Clifton Park-Halfmoon Public Library, CDTA bus service connecting to Saratoga Springs and Albany, and an established trail network round out the civic picture for families thinking about daily life here.

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Academic performance

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

Math

Grade 393%

School 93% · District 85% · ▲ 8 pts above district

▲ 35 pts above state median · ▲ 22 pts above county median

Grade 489%

School 89% · District 81% · ▲ 7 pts above district

▲ 31 pts above state median · ▲ 16 pts above county median

Grade 551%

School 51% · District 77% · ▼ 27 pts below district

▼ 1 pts below state median · ▼ 13 pts below county median

English language arts

Grade 381%

School 81% · District 73% · ▲ 7 pts above district

▲ 29 pts above state median · ▲ 19 pts above county median

Grade 473%

School 73% · District 69% · ▲ 3 pts above district

▲ 20 pts above state median · ▲ 6 pts above county median

Grade 557%

School 57% · District 75% · ▼ 18 pts below district

▲ 2 pts above state median · ▼ 4 pts below county median

Science

Grade 539%

School 39% · District 61% · ▼ 22 pts below district

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

Social studies

Grade 591%

School 91% · district not reported

▼ 1 pts below state median · ▼ 5 pts below county median

This schoolSHENENDEHOWA 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-income63%Higher-income85%22 pp gap

Grade 4Lower-income67%Higher-income74%7 pp gap

Grade 5Lower-income41%Higher-income62%21 pp gap

Mathematics

Grade 3Lower-income88%Higher-income95%7 pp gap

Grade 4Lower-income90%Higher-income89%1 pp gap

Grade 5Lower-income29%Higher-income58%29 pp gap