Kae Avenue Elementary School, Whitehall OH

Original Research by School Decision on Kae Avenue Elementary School

Kae Avenue Elementary School is a small, pre-K through first-grade school in Whitehall serving just over six hundred students. The enrollment is concentrated in kindergarten, which is its largest grade, with smaller cohorts in pre-K and first grade. The student body is diverse: roughly two in five students identify as Black, about three in ten as Hispanic, and the remainder split among White students, two or more races, and Asian and Native American students. Data on free-and-reduced-price lunch eligibility and special-education or English-learner enrollment were not available.

Because the school serves only the earliest grades, state testing data comes from very small cohorts—three students in third grade, one in fourth grade, and two in sixth grade—meaning year-to-year results are driven by individual student performance rather than trends. In the most recent available math and English language arts results, proficiency on Ohio's state tests ranged widely. Third-graders showed proficiency in about two-thirds of cases in both subjects; the sole fourth-grader tested was not proficient in either; and the two sixth-graders split on English language arts, with both proficient in math. Science data from earlier years showed lower overall proficiency. These small-sample results offer a window rather than a stable picture, and a parent may want to look into this further with the school directly, particularly to understand how the school's curriculum and instruction are positioned for students transitioning to the school's peer elementary buildings and eventually middle school.

Relative to other elementary schools in Franklin County's districts, Kae Avenue's overall proficiency index places it in the bottom quartile, though again the small tested population shapes this measure.

Whitehall itself is a working-class inner-ring suburb about six miles east of Columbus, built mostly in the mid-to-late twentieth century around auto-oriented commercial corridors. The city is in the midst of substantial reinvestment. Housing values in the area are below state and national benchmarks, and rental costs are moderate relative to local incomes. The district has recently launched two new career-technical education pathways—Medical BioScience and Engineering & Design—funded by a state equipment grant, moving beyond reliance on the Eastland-Fairfield Career Center. District-wide academic results have been uneven: performance improved to three stars on the state report card in 2023-24 but settled back to two stars in 2024-25, and early literacy ratings dropped from two to one star in the most recent cycle. This mixed trajectory reflects the district's ongoing work to stabilize and improve outcomes across its grade bands.

See more original research from School Decision →

Academic performance

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

Math

Grade 367%

School 67% · district not reported

▲ 5 pts above state median

Grade 40%

School 0% · district not reported

▼ 65 pts below state median

Grade 6100%

School 100% · district not reported

▲ 78 pts above state median · ▲ 90 pts above county median

English language arts

Grade 367%

School 67% · district not reported

▲ 8 pts above state median

Grade 40%

School 0% · district not reported

▼ 58 pts below state median

Grade 650%

School 50% · district not reported

▲ 9 pts above state median

Science

Grade 536%

School 36% · district not reported

▼ 26 pts below state median · ▼ 12 pts below county median

Social studies

Grade 453%

School 53% · district not reported

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

This schoolWhitehall 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 5Lower-income34%Higher-income44%11 pp gap

Mathematics

Grade 5Lower-income28%Higher-income22%5 pp gap