The top reported proficiency rate is 56% in Science. The lowest is 33% in Math.
Original Research by School Decision on Colwyn El Sch
Colwyn Elementary School is a small public school serving kindergarten through sixth grade in a dense residential borough on the eastern edge of Delaware County, Pennsylvania, where it sits within the William Penn School District. The school enrolls a small population of students drawn almost entirely from Colwyn itself, a financially distressed municipality of modest size that borders Philadelphia.
The student body is predominantly African American, with a nearly universal rate of economic need. Nearly all students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, reflecting the high poverty rate in Colwyn, which is more than double the countywide and statewide poverty averages. The enrollment is stable across grade bands, distributed roughly evenly from kindergarten through sixth grade. The school serves no identified English learner or special education population in the available data, though data on those groups was not provided.
On state assessments, Colwyn Elementary's proficiency results fall below the midpoint relative to other districts in Delaware County. In English language arts, about four in ten students reached proficiency in grades three through six on the 2024-25 Pennsylvania System of School Assessment. In math, the rate was closer to one in three. Science proficiency data is more limited and dated, showing roughly half of tested students at proficiency level on the 2022-23 assessment. These numbers indicate that a substantial share of students are not yet meeting grade-level standards, and a parent may want to look into further detail with the school about how reading and math instruction are being delivered and what supports are available to students below proficiency.
The district itself is navigating significant fiscal and structural challenges. William Penn School District was the lead plaintiff in a landmark 2023 lawsuit that declared Pennsylvania's school funding system unconstitutional. That ruling has triggered a state-wide funding overhaul, and William Penn is receiving new state dollars over multiple years as part of that remedy. However, the district simultaneously faces steep local budget pressures. For the 2025-26 school year, the board enacted one of its largest recent property tax increases, while cutting central office positions, mental health support staff, elementary academic interventionists, and implementing a hiring freeze. The district also discontinued non-athletic after-school extracurriculars during the prolonged state budget impasse. State funding accounts for a substantial portion of the district's operating budget, meaning that changes at the state level directly affect what reaches schools. A parent considering this school should understand that resource constraints are real and ongoing.
Starting in the 2027-28 school year, all William Penn schools including Colwyn Elementary must adopt evidence-based structured literacy reading curriculum and conduct reading screening for students in kindergarten through third grade three times annually. This represents a concrete, district-wide shift in how reading is taught, informed by the science of reading.
Colwyn itself is a very small, walkable borough of about one square mile, situated along the Cobbs and Darby Creek corridor at the edge of the suburban-urban fringe. It is served by SEPTA rail, trolley, and bus connections to Philadelphia. The housing stock is predominantly rentals, and the borough has experienced no new building development in recent decades, constrained by its tiny footprint and location within mapped floodplain areas. The community has long faced municipal financial distress.
For families already living in Colwyn or considering a move to the borough, this is an elementary school embedded in a high-poverty, predominantly African American community with below-county-average proficiency results and a district managing significant budget pressures while receiving historic new state funding. The school's small size and neighborhood setting are characteristics in their own right; parents should pair what they learn from state testing with direct conversations about instruction, intervention capacity, and how the recent and forthcoming district changes will affect classroom practice.
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