East Elementary School, New Philadelphia OH

Original Research by School Decision on East Elementary School

East Elementary School is a small public elementary school serving pre-K through first grade in New Philadelphia, a stable mid-sized city in eastern Ohio. The school enrolls just over two hundred students. More than half qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, and the student body is predominantly white, with a meaningful share of Hispanic students and very small numbers of Asian and Black students. Detailed data on the enrollment of English learners and students with IEPs was not available.

The school is located in New Philadelphia City School District, which operates five elementary schools, one middle school, and a high school. The district has been engaged in a sustained effort to secure funding for new school facilities. Since 2023, voters have rejected multiple ballot measures seeking to support construction of new buildings, including a May 2026 income tax that failed to pass. The state had offered matching funds for a project to build a new pre-K through sixth-grade elementary and a new seventh through twelfth-grade building on a single campus, but that offer expires at the end of 2026. The outcome of this funding question is still unresolved and will directly affect the physical condition of the buildings students attend. Parents considering East Elementary should look into the district's current facility conditions and timelines with the school or district office.

State testing data comes from 2018-19 and reflects performance in grades three through five, as the school serves only through first grade. Math proficiency showed mixed results: third-grade students performed at a solid level, fourth graders performed stronger still, and fifth graders' performance dipped. English language arts results were similarly variable, with stronger performance in third and fifth grades and weaker results in fourth grade. The school's fifth-grade science proficiency was comparable to its ELA and math averages. One social studies result from 2016-17 showed fourth-grade proficiency at a moderate level. The school's overall proficiency index across tested subjects and grades places it in the bottom quartile relative to districts in Tuscarawas County. These snapshot results are now several years old; a parent may want to check with the school for more recent performance information.

The school sits in New Philadelphia proper, a historic small city that mixes a walkable downtown with residential neighborhoods and highway-oriented retail. Downtown features locally owned shops, coffee places, and public art, anchored by a 19th-century courthouse and the county library. The broader city is car-oriented, with chain retail and big-box stores clustered along Interstate 77 and US Route 36. Public transit is limited to on-demand service rather than fixed routes. Home values in the zip code are below the state benchmark, making housing relatively affordable for the region. The local economy rests on a cluster of industrial manufacturers, Kent State University's regional campus, and public-sector employers in education and the library system.

For families drawn to a small, stable community with a compact downtown and manufacturing-anchored economy, New Philadelphia offers that setting. Prospective families should understand that East Elementary is one school in a district currently navigating unresolved questions about facility investment, and should seek direct conversation with school staff about building conditions and the district's priorities going forward.

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Academic performance

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

Math

Grade 362%

School 62% · district not reported

▲ 1 pts above state median

Grade 477%

School 77% · district not reported

▲ 12 pts above state median

Grade 559%

School 59% · district not reported

▲ 18 pts above state median

English language arts

Grade 362%

School 62% · district not reported

▲ 4 pts above state median

Grade 458%

School 58% · district not reported

even with state median

Grade 565%

School 65% · district not reported

even with state median

Science

Grade 562%

School 62% · district not reported

▲ 1 pts above state median

Social studies

Grade 469%

School 69% · district not reported

▼ 13 pts below state median · ▼ 17 pts below county median

This schoolNew Philadelphia City, 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-income33%Higher-income77%43 pp gap

Grade 4Lower-income50%Higher-income70%20 pp gap

Grade 5Lower-income55%Higher-income69%14 pp gap

Mathematics

Grade 3Lower-income40%Higher-income73%33 pp gap

Grade 4Lower-income68%Higher-income90%22 pp gap

Grade 5Lower-income46%Higher-income63%17 pp gap