Ballico-Cressey Elementary

The Ballico-Cressey Elementary district is a small elementary district with two schools: Ballico-Cressey Community Charter, serving grades 1–8 with 293 students, and Cressey Elementary, serving kindergarten with 43 students. The most important finding is that the charter’s 2025–26 all-grade results were below state results in every tested subject, while the available data do not provide achievement results for Cressey.

The charter’s overall gaps were largest in ELA: 41% of students were proficient, compared with 49% statewide, a difference of 9 percentage points; math was 33% versus 38%, a 5-point gap; and science was 34% versus 36%, a 2-point gap. Results vary considerably by grade, especially in math: grade 6 was 15% proficient versus 37% statewide, while grade 7 was 47% versus 38% and grade 8 was 54% versus 36%. Grade 8 ELA was also slightly above the state, at 50% versus 49%. These grade-level contrasts show that the overall results do not capture the same pattern in every grade.

Recent progress is mixed: from 2024–25 to 2025–26, the charter’s ELA proficiency fell 5 points and math fell 3, with the gaps to the state widening by 6 and 4 points, respectively; science rose 13 points, narrowing its gap by 10. Separately, SchoolDigger’s charter percentile declined from 58th in 2023–24 to 38th in 2025–26, while its district rating is 2 stars, at the 45th percentile. Attendance is comparatively favorable: chronic absenteeism was 6% at the charter and 9% at Cressey, versus 18% statewide. For 2024–25, free/reduced lunch eligible shares were 46% at the charter and 47% at Cressey; student-teacher ratios were 16.4 and 14.3, respectively. These figures describe different school contexts, not what caused their results.