Best School Districts in Los Angeles County (2026)

A listing’s “top-rated school district” line only gets you so far, though. A district gives you a set of schools, so the one to check is the school your address leads to at each stage: elementary, middle and high school.

Which LA County districts score highest, and how much does the order mean?

The ranking uses SchoolScope’s Scope Score, which combines state test results with attendance and other school-climate measures. High schools add graduation and college readiness.

Data source: California Department of Education. Elementary and middle-school scores use 2025–26 results; high-school scores use the reviewed 2024–25 college-readiness model. The attendance column uses 2025–26 school rates. This table updates when scores change.

The All Levels tab averages each district’s scored school records, and every record counts the same, whether the school has 200 students or 2,000. A district needs at least three records to appear there. Private schools stay out of it, and so do continuation schools and the schools California’s Dashboard treats as alternative schools, which we rank only against schools like them (the methodology page explains why). A school with “Alternative” in its name can still be an ordinary school of choice, and those count.

Inside one school’s score, we keep levels apart, because a third grader’s test and an eleventh grader’s test measure different things. The All Levels average puts them back together, and that has a side effect. On our scale, high schools score higher than elementary schools at the same standing. In the scores shown here, the school at the 50th percentile scored about 56 among high schools and about 35 among elementary schools. So a district with more high schools in its count gets a lift. If your child is starting kindergarten, switch the table to Elementary before you read the order.

You can see the lift in one row. Every scored school in Whittier Union High is a high school, and it sits 12th in the All Levels order. Ranked by its schools’ average percentile instead, it would be 27th of the 76 LA County districts in the full ranking. That’s our arithmetic on the same records shown here.

Near the top, the gaps are small enough to ignore. On the Elementary tab, La Cañada and Manhattan Beach are less than a fifth of a point apart. A gap that size shouldn’t decide where you live.

Averages also leave some tested schools out. A school gets a score at a level only if it tested every grade that level needs (the methodology page lists them). Temple City runs six regular elementary, middle and high schools, and three of them have a score. Its K–3 school, its 4–6 school and its 7–8 intermediate school all tested in 2025–26 but have no score in our data. That leaves the district with no middle-level score at all. Temple City does have a middle school; our score just doesn’t cover it.

Which districts stay in the top 10% at our child’s stage?

The figure gives each district one track per stage and draws nothing between them, because an elementary school and a high school are compared with different pools of California schools.

Five districts keep every dot in the yellow top-10% zone at every stage they score: La Cañada, San Marino, Manhattan Beach, South Pasadena and El Segundo. El Segundo’s high school, at the 91st, sits closest to the line. Choose a stage and the order shifts a little. At elementary level, La Cañada and Manhattan Beach are virtually tied, with San Marino next. For middle school, South Pasadena leads. La Cañada has no middle-school score and drops to the end of that order, because its seventh and eighth graders attend its high school. For high school, La Cañada leads.

La Cañada Unified

La Cañada’s three elementary schools sit at the 97th to 99th percentile in 2025–26. Seventh and eighth graders attend La Cañada High School, which the district runs as a 7/8 program and a 9–12 program. We score it as one high school, so the district has no middle-level score. On its held 2024–25 score, La Cañada High is at the 99th percentile, 10th of the 1,498 California high schools in our statewide ranking.

San Marino Unified

Every San Marino school sits at the 96th percentile or higher in the scores shown here. With two elementary schools, one middle school and one high school, the path is short and easy to read. Its schools also have the lowest average chronic absence in the top five, 2.0% in 2025–26. Chronic absence means missing at least 10% of the days a student was expected to attend.

Manhattan Beach Unified

Manhattan Beach’s five elementary schools all sit at the 98th percentile or higher in 2025–26. Its one middle school, Manhattan Beach Middle, is the district’s lowest-placed school at the 92nd. That still puts it above 92 in 100 California middle schools. If your child would be there for middle school, that’s the visit we’d book first.

South Pasadena Unified

South Pasadena’s middle school is one of its strongest results. At the 99th percentile on 2025–26 results, it is the district’s highest-placed school. Its three elementary schools sit at the 96th to 98th percentile, and its high school stays at the 97th on the held 2024–25 score.

El Segundo Unified

El Segundo’s four scored schools sit between the 91st and 98th percentile in the scores shown here. It has two elementary schools, at the 96th and 98th on 2025–26 results. With one middle and one high school in our data, the elementary school is the one to confirm for an address. El Segundo High, at the 91st, is its lowest-placed school.

Palos Verdes Peninsula Unified

Palos Verdes has 15 scored schools in the scores shown here, more than any other district in the top ten. They range from the 84th to the 98th percentile. With that many records, one school moves the average less than La Cañada High moves a four-record average, so the district number moves less when one school changes. The spread is wider too, so which of its ten elementary schools you’d get matters.

Walnut Valley Unified

Walnut Valley’s strongest stage is middle school. Its three middle schools sit at the 93rd to 97th percentile on 2025–26 results, and its two high schools stay at the 93rd on their held 2024–25 scores. Its nine elementary schools spread wider, from the 72nd to the 97th. A kindergartner’s address matters more here than it does in Manhattan Beach.

Does the district decide which school we’d actually get?

Less than the ranking makes it look. Inside one district, schools can be further apart than the districts are from each other.

Look at the Los Angeles Unified row at the bottom of the figure above. LAUSD sits 42nd of 76 LA County districts in the full ranking shown here. Yet 47 of its 581 scored elementary schools are at or above the 90th percentile on 2025–26 results, more than the 17 across the top six districts combined. That’s mostly size. Those 47 are about 1 in 12 of LAUSD’s scored elementary schools. In the top six districts, all 17 scored elementary schools clear the same line. LAUSD’s count also takes in the charter schools that state records list under the district: 20 of the 47 are charters, and some others are magnets. LAUSD says families can enroll at their assigned school or apply to its specialized programs. Check how each school on your list enrolls. Even so, in a district that big, the address decides far more than the district name does.

One example: Overland Avenue Elementary, an LAUSD school on the Westside, is at the 99th percentile on 2025–26 results. Its Scope Score, 88, is two points below La Cañada Elementary’s 90 (also the 99th percentile), the highest of La Cañada’s three. You’d miss Overland if you only searched inside top-ranked districts.

Smaller districts spread out too. Newhall’s ten elementary schools run from the 40th to the 98th percentile in 2025–26. Its highest-placed, Stevenson Ranch Elementary, is at the 98th.

Some dots are schools you apply to rather than get by address. Santa Clarita Valley International, a K–12 charter school, counts in the William S. Hart district’s numbers at all three levels. The figure draws charter schools as open rings, and our guide to getting into a charter school covers how applications work. Once a school is on your list, by address or by application, the next number we’d look up is how many of its students miss a lot of school.

What does attendance say about daily life in these districts?

Chronic absence is the share of students who miss at least 10% of the days they’re expected to attend, as CDE defines it. We read it as a daily-life signal. It tells you how many kids miss a lot of school, though not why, so a high rate is a question to ask the school.

The table’s Avg Chronic Absence column is an average of school rates, using each school’s CDE rate for all its students. Each scored school counts once, whatever its size. That’s the right shape for comparing schools, but it isn’t the share of a district’s students who missed school.

In Santa Monica-Malibu, the average of school rates is 14.3% for 2025–26. Counting students instead, it’s 15.3%: 1,328 of the 8,702 students CDE counts as eligible. That’s our arithmetic on CDE’s 2025–26 school file, and the student count also takes in a continuation school the ranking leaves out.

Use the district column to compare districts, then open the profile of the school your child would attend for its own rate. Each profile also shows suspensions, which we don’t total by district here. On the district column, San Marino’s four schools average 2.0% in 2025–26, against Santa Monica-Malibu’s 14.3%.

Does spending explain the ranking?

Not in any simple way. The table below shows what each district spent from its general fund on day-to-day operations in 2024–25, per student in average daily attendance (ADA). ADA is the total days students attended, divided by the days of instruction. It’s the California Department of Education’s figure, the same one each district page shows.

Beverly Hills spent the most of these districts in 2024–25, $35,360 per student in attendance, and sits 6th in the ranking shown here. LAUSD spent $29,292 and sits 42nd. La Cañada, first, spent $17,349. Spending and the ranking don’t line up here. These figures can’t show what the money pays for.

One quirk of the measure: it divides by attendance, not enrollment. Take two districts with the same spending and enrollment. The one where students miss more days has fewer students present on an average day, so its per-ADA figure runs higher.

How do we check a specific address?

That leaves the address. For each address you’re serious about, look up the assigned elementary, middle and high school, and any choice the district offers. Open each school’s profile, which shows the feeder path from elementary to high school where we have one. Then confirm every stage with the district before you sign anything.

How far ahead to look depends on how long you expect to stay. If you’re buying for the long run, all three stages count. If you might move again before middle school, the elementary school carries most of the weight. A quick look at the middle school still costs little.

Small districts can fall below the All Levels floor of three records. Hermosa Beach City Elementary has one scored record, Hermosa Valley at middle level, at the 93rd percentile on 2025–26 results, so look for the district on the Middle tab rather than in the All Levels order.

In Los Angeles Unified, the district’s Resident School Identifier finds the assigned school for an address. Elsewhere, the district’s enrollment office is the place to ask.

Some addresses are served by two districts. In the Santa Clarita Valley, Saugus Union and Newhall run elementary schools through sixth grade. At seventh grade, children move to a junior high in the William S. Hart district, which describes that handoff on its site. The ranking lists them as separate districts, so read both rows for one address.

If the San Gabriel Valley is on your list, our La Cañada, South Pasadena and Arcadia comparison follows each address from kindergarten through high school. For the Westside, the 10 best elementary schools on LA’s Westside goes school by school. California’s hidden-gem schools lists high-scoring schools that serve mostly lower-income families, and the charter school guide covers applying beyond your assigned school.

What can’t a district ranking tell us?

A ranking can’t show you the classroom: how a teacher helps a child who’s stuck, which programs a school runs, or whether after-school care fits your workday. This ranking also doesn’t account for home prices.

We’d use it to decide which neighborhoods to tour. After that, the schools themselves, and your child, make the case.

Search a zip code to find the schools behind the district averages.