Whitehall Elementary School, Whitehall NY

Original Research by School Decision on Whitehall Elementary School

Whitehall Elementary School serves the small, blue-collar village of Whitehall at the southern end of Lake Champlain in Washington County. The school sits on a shared campus on Buckley Road, set apart from the village's historic Main Street downtown. It enrolls a school community of mixed economic profile: a substantial share of families qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, and the student body is predominantly white with very small numbers of students from other racial and ethnic backgrounds.

The school currently struggles academically across tested grades and subjects. In math, students in third and fourth grades score at proficiency levels in the low teens; fifth grade sees modestly higher performance, and sixth grade reaches the low twenties. English language arts shows a similar pattern through fifth grade, with proficiency in the mid-teens to low twenties, but sixth grade stands out with proficiency in the low forties. Science proficiency in fifth grade sits in the high twenties. When compared against other schools in Washington County's districts, Whitehall Elementary's overall proficiency index places it in the bottom quarter. Sixth-grade ELA performance is the strongest grade-subject combination in the school; a parent may want to understand with the school whether that improvement reflects a shift in instructional approach or student composition heading into middle school, since the grades below it remain low.

Teachers do report high participation in testing, generally in the high eighties to mid-nineties percent, which means these results reflect the school's full student population rather than a subset of test-takers. The elementary grades (K-2) are not state-tested under New York's assessment system, so their performance is not reflected in these numbers.

Recent district changes affect the household budget: all students now receive breakfast and lunch at no cost daily, a policy that began in the school year and continues under New York's statewide universal free meals program. The district is also investing in a new bus facility to replace its aging garage, funded from reserve balances, addressing longtime operational problems. These are practical shifts that reduce family costs and signal maintenance of school infrastructure.

Whitehall sits in a community with modest home values and a lower-middle-income population profile. The village center retains historic character and walkability around Main Street, though the area contends with Route 4 traffic and physical division by the Champlain Canal. Daily life is largely car-dependent outside that core. Local work centers on health care, manufacturing, and retail; some residents commute to job centers in Glens Falls or Rutland. The school's grade band (PK-6) feeds into Whitehall Junior-Senior High School on the same campus, so the transition to middle school is local.

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Academic performance

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

Math

Grade 315%

School 15% · District 15%

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

Grade 414%

School 14% · District 14%

▼ 45 pts below state median · ▼ 33 pts below county median

Grade 519%

School 19% · District 19%

▼ 32 pts below state median · ▼ 38 pts below county median

Grade 623%

School 23% · District 23%

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

English language arts

Grade 315%

School 15% · District 15%

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

Grade 421%

School 21% · District 21%

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

Grade 518%

School 18% · District 18%

▼ 36 pts below state median · ▼ 29 pts below county median

Grade 642%

School 42% · District 42%

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

Science

Grade 527%

School 27% · District 27%

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

Social studies

Grade 587%

School 87% · district not reported

▼ 5 pts below state median

This schoolWHITEHALL 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-income0%Higher-income36%36 pp gap

Grade 4Lower-income17%Higher-income27%10 pp gap

Grade 5Lower-income13%Higher-income27%14 pp gap

Grade 6Lower-income38%Higher-income50%12 pp gap

Mathematics

Grade 3Lower-income6%Higher-income27%21 pp gap

Grade 4Lower-income10%Higher-income20%10 pp gap

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

Grade 6Lower-income22%Higher-income25%3 pp gap