The top reported proficiency rate is 71% in Science. The lowest is 40% in English language arts.
Original Research by School Decision on Daniel J Flood El Sch
Daniel J Flood Elementary School serves kindergarten through fifth grade in Wilkes-Barre, a mid-sized city in northeastern Pennsylvania with a walkable downtown anchored by Public Square and anchored by two college campuses. The school sits on North Washington Street in the city proper, drawing students primarily from surrounding residential neighborhoods and the downtown area.
The student body at Flood reflects Wilkes-Barre's demographic composition. The enrollment is roughly a third Hispanic, a sixth Black, and a sixth white, with the remainder split across other groups. All students at the school qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, a marker of high economic need in the school community. English learner and special education enrollment data were not available in the public record, so a parent interested in how those populations are served would need to contact the school directly.
The school enrollment sits at a level typical for a K-5 building in its district, distributed fairly evenly across grade levels. Class sizes, which matter significantly to elementary families, were not reported in the available data. However, the district's 2024-25 budget included a plan to hire additional teachers specifically to lower elementary class sizes, so families may see some pressure on this front ease in coming years.
State test results for grades 3 through 5 show proficiency rates around two in five students in both English language arts and math on the 2024-25 Pennsylvania System of School Assessment. The school's science proficiency was notably higher, closer to seven in ten students, on the most recent available data. Across all tested subjects, Flood's overall proficiency rate places it in the top quartile among the county's school districts, a meaningful strength relative to its neighbors. A parent may want to look into the school's specific approach to math and ELA instruction, since those two core subjects show room for growth compared to the science results.
Wilkes-Barre as a place offers some practical advantages for families. The downtown is genuinely walkable, with Public Square as a civic center for markets, festivals, and events. The Osterhout Free Library's downtown branch serves the community, and the Luzerne County Transportation Authority runs fixed-route buses weekdays and Saturdays. Housing values in the Wilkes-Barre area are well below national and state medians, making homeownership more affordable for families, though median household income also reflects regional economic conditions. Recent development has focused on adaptive reuse and mixed-use housing downtown, signaling renewed investment in the urban core.
The broader Wilkes-Barre Area School District, which operates Flood, consolidated its three historic city high schools into a single Wilkes-Barre Area High School in 2021-22, a structural change that affects secondary pathways for every elementary student who will attend grades 6 onward. The district's recent budgets have emphasized avoiding tax increases while funding facility renovations across all buildings and expanding its STEM Academy program, suggesting a district intent on modernizing infrastructure and pathway options without a corresponding burden on property tax bills.
For an elementary family, Flood offers solid state test performance relative to other district schools in its county, an economically diverse peer environment, and the advantages of an urban neighborhood with walkable amenities and public transit. The proficiency gaps in core academics are real and worth discussing with school leadership to understand how instruction is structured and what support systems exist for students working toward grade-level benchmarks.
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