Oakdale Elementary School

Oakdale Elementary School is a K–5 neighborhood school at 802 S 8th Street in Boonville, Indiana, serving 449 students as one of nine elementaries in the Warrick County School Corp, a district ranked 26th of 374 in Indiana. Oakdale itself ranked #202 of 1,015 Indiana elementary schools in 2025–26 — the 80th percentile, or 4 stars — and has stayed between the 68th and 83rd percentile every reported year since 2015–16, holding 4 stars in nine of the last ten years. In short: a stable, reliably above-average school with no dramatic swings in either direction, doing so while serving the highest free/reduced-lunch rate (58.6%) of the district's larger elementaries.

Its clearest strengths are reading, attendance, and class size. All-grade ELA proficiency of 59.7% topped the district average and ranked 4th of nine elementaries. Chronic absenteeism of 7.6% is well below the district (11.2%) and less than half the state (16.7%), and the school has never exceeded 12.1% in five reported years. At 14.4 students per teacher, Oakdale has the smallest class ratio of any district elementary enrolling more than 300 students. For comparison, Loge Elementary School is under a mile away with nearly identical demographics and an almost identical rank, but spends about 25% more per student ($13,811 vs. $11,062) with larger classes. Meanwhile, the top-ranked local school, Sharon Elementary School (98th percentile), actually has the group's worst absenteeism at 14.5% — showing attendance and test scores don't move together mechanically.

The priorities are math, science, and fourth grade. Oakdale's math (59.7%) ranked 8th of nine district elementaries and science (47.2%) trailed the district by nearly 15 points. Fourth grade is the outlier across every subject: 4th-grade math was last among the eight reporting elementaries, 18.5 points below district. Grade-level scores rest on a few dozen students each, so some swing is noise — but the gap is consistent across all three subjects. Still, the school has shown it can move: ELA is up 12.6 points in three years, and 5th-grade social studies jumped 38 points in a single year. The open question is whether that capacity can be aimed at math and science.