Barack Obama Elementary School

Barack Obama Elementary School is a grades 4–5 school at 5800 Glenwood Ave. in Maple Heights, a Cuyahoga County suburb of Cleveland, serving 445 students as the only upper-elementary building in the Maple Heights City district — it sits in a tight campus cluster with its feeder schools, John F. Kennedy Elementary School (grades 1–4) and Abraham Lincoln Elementary School (PK–1).

Academically, the school ranks 1,311 of 1,560 Ohio schools (16th percentile, 1 star) and has stayed between the 9th and 17th percentile every year since 2015–16. Because it is the district's only grades 4–5 building, its scores match district figures within 0.2 points in every subject, so district comparisons tell parents little — the meaningful gap is to the state. Fifth-grade ELA (50.7% proficient vs. 70.4% statewide) and fifth-grade science (40.3% vs. 62.7%) are the strongest results, while fourth-grade math (29.3% vs. 67.3%) and fourth-grade ELA (27.2% vs. 61.8%) are the weakest, 34 to 38 points behind. Two strengths stand out: chronic absenteeism has fallen 6.4 points to 41.1%, better than the district and nearly every comparable nearby school, and class sizes improved from 22.1 students per teacher to 15.8.

Compared with Maple Leaf Elementary School — the nearest school that also serves only grades 4–5 — results mirror each other: Barack Obama leads in fifth-grade ELA and science, Maple Leaf leads in fourth-grade reading and math, and Barack Obama has far better attendance (41.1% vs. 53.3%) while spending about $2,100 less per student. Nearby charters vary widely; Ohio College Preparatory School ranks at the 88th percentile despite 54.9% absenteeism. The most persistent concern is special education, where the school sits in the bottom 4–5% of Ohio schools with zero stars across multiple years.