East Elementary, Jefferson WI - Test Scores & Data

Original Research by School Decision on East Elementary

East Elementary in Jefferson, Wisconsin, serves students from pre-kindergarten through fifth grade and operates as a regular public school within the Jefferson School District. This is a neighborhood elementary school in a small city that sits roughly midway between Milwaukee and Madison, with the Rock and Crawfish rivers converging in its downtown core. The school is housed in a building constructed as a public works project during the Great Depression, a detail that publicly reported sources note gives it a place in the community’s history.

The student body is predominantly white, with a Hispanic population representing a meaningful share of the enrollment. More than a third of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, a figure that places the school in a middle economic range for a public elementary school. The school’s enrollment is moderate in size, with classes distributed fairly evenly across the elementary grades. Data on students with individualized education programs and English learners was not available; a parent seeking that information would need to contact the school or district directly.

State assessment results paint a mixed but instructive picture. In third grade, a strong majority of students met the proficiency bar in both reading and math. Fourth-grade results show a similar pattern in math, with a solid majority proficient, while reading proficiency dipped into a range that a parent may want to investigate further. Science and social studies scores in fourth grade were both positive, with social studies noticeably stronger. The fifth-grade results show a more pronounced divergence: math proficiency remained in a solid range, but reading proficiency dropped below half. This pattern suggests that the school may have a particular challenge sustaining reading growth into the upper elementary grades, and families of older elementary students may want to ask about reading intervention supports.

Looking across all tested subjects and grades, the school’s overall proficiency index places it in the top quarter of its peer group relative to districts in Jefferson County. That is a meaningful strength. The school is performing better than many of its neighbors on the combined measure, even though the fifth-grade reading result gives a reason to look underneath the overall number.

Because East Elementary serves only through fifth grade, there is no graduation rate to report. The school offers no high-school-level advanced courses or career-and-technical pathways, which is expected for an elementary building. The school is not a charter or magnet school. Its Title I status was not reported.

Jefferson itself is a small city that has seen steady population growth and rising home values. The city’s marketing emphasizes its location between two major metro areas and its mix of residential neighborhoods, a historic Main Street, and industrial employers such as an ethanol plant and a cat food manufacturing plant. The housing market in the Jefferson area shows a median home value below the national benchmark but climbing at a noticeable pace. The cost of living is described as low relative to the national average. For families moving from a larger city, Jefferson offers a more affordable entry point to homeownership, though the rising values suggest growing demand.

The Jefferson School District did not have a readily available public record of recent referendums or major capital projects in the search, so those details are not included here. What is clear from the school’s own profile is that East Elementary is a solidly performing school by the metrics available, with a strong early-elementary start and a noticeable soft spot in fifth-grade reading that a parent should ask about. It sits in a community that is growing modestly, has a visible German-heritage civic identity, and offers a relatively low-cost housing environment compared to its nearby metropolitan areas. For a family looking at elementary options in Jefferson County, East Elementary fits the profile of a school that generally performs above the local median but has a specific area of reading achievement that warrants a conversation with the principal or classroom teachers.

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Academic performance

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

Math

Grade 371%

School 71% · District 71%

▲ 14 pts above state median · ▲ 8 pts above county median

Grade 462%

School 62% · District 50% · ▲ 12 pts above district

▲ 7 pts above state median · ▲ 7 pts above county median

Grade 562%

School 62% · District 55% · ▲ 7 pts above district

▲ 11 pts above state median · ▲ 1 pts above county median

English language arts

Grade 374%

School 74% · District 68% · ▲ 6 pts above district

▲ 21 pts above state median · ▲ 14 pts above county median

Grade 459%

School 59% · District 54% · ▲ 5 pts above district

▲ 7 pts above state median · ▲ 4 pts above county median

Grade 544%

School 44% · District 48% · ▼ 4 pts below district

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

Science

Grade 464%

School 64% · District 58% · ▲ 6 pts above district

▲ 13 pts above state median · ▲ 9 pts above county median

Social studies

Grade 477%

School 77% · District 69% · ▲ 8 pts above district

▲ 12 pts above state median · ▲ 8 pts above county median

This schoolJefferson 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-income69%Higher-income76%7 pp gap

Grade 4Lower-income47%Higher-income70%23 pp gap

Grade 5Lower-income39%Higher-income48%9 pp gap

Mathematics

Grade 3Lower-income62%Higher-income76%15 pp gap

Grade 4Lower-income58%Higher-income65%7 pp gap

Grade 5Lower-income54%Higher-income67%13 pp gap