Summary:
The city of Sweet Valley, Pennsylvania has only one school serving students from kindergarten through 6th grade - Ross Elementary School, which is part of the Lake-Lehman School District. While Ross Elementary performs relatively well academically, particularly in the early grades, it faces some challenges in terms of its declining statewide ranking and the high proportion of economically disadvantaged students it serves.
Academically, Ross Elementary outperforms both the district and state averages in several key PSSA proficiency metrics, especially in 3rd grade Math (73.7% vs. 51.7% state) and 3rd grade ELA (89.5% vs. 54% state). This suggests the school is doing an effective job of preparing its younger students for academic success. However, the school's statewide ranking has declined over the past three years, from 858 out of 1,433 elementary schools in 2020-2021 to 737 out of 1,534 in 2022-2023, indicating it may not be keeping pace with improvements at other schools across the state.
Another challenge for Ross Elementary is the high percentage of students (44.63%) who qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, significantly higher than the state average. This could present additional challenges in terms of resource allocation and supporting the unique needs of this student population. Additionally, with only 177 students, Ross Elementary is a relatively small school, which may limit the diversity of educational and extracurricular opportunities available to its students, though the small student-to-teacher ratio of 10.6:1 could be seen as a potential advantage.
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