Alianza Charter: No single number tells this school's story. Here's the honest picture.
Alianza Charter posts 36% meeting the standard and 12.7% exceeding it, against 43% and 21.3% statewide. The gaps and the bright spots below are the real read.
| Scope | % Exceeded | % Met+ | Growth | Absence | Suspension | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| This school | 41 | 13% | 36% | +7.5 | 21.0% | 1.3% |
| CA average · Elementary School | 45 | 21% | 43% | -2.9 | 17.9% | 1.6% |
Alianza Charter scores 41 of 100 on SchoolScope's Scope Score — the 46th percentile of 5,744 California elementary schools (CDE CAASPP 2025).
Measures test performance, attendance, and climate — not arts, community, or your kid. How we score →
📈 On the Rise — Ask how many years the improvement has held, not just the latest one — one strong cohort and a real turnaround can look identical in a single year of data.
Most rating sites would stop at “36% proficient” and call it done. Alianza Charter deserves a closer read. The school sits in Watsonville, where four in five students qualify for free or reduced lunch — and reading the numbers without that context misreads the school.
As a charter, Alianza Charter enrolls by application rather than address. That changes how you get in, but it doesn't change the score.
The seven-year arc
Has stayed near the 46th percentile since 2019.
This school hasn't fully recovered from the pandemic: 36% meet the standard today, versus 43% in 2019 — a gap worth asking about on a visit.
| Grade | 2019 | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Grade 3 | 45% | 35% | 41% | 49% | 35% |
| Grade 4 | 38% | 33% | 31% | 42% | 39% |
| Grade 5 | 45% | 36% | 49% | 34% | 49% |
| Grade 6 | 35% | 25% | 26% | 38% | 52% |
| Grade 7 | 32% | 53% | 32% | 21% | 50% |
| Grade 8 | 34% | 25% | 40% | 22% | 31% |
| Grade | 2019 | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Grade 3 | 55% | 29% | 42% | 38% | 29% |
| Grade 4 | 36% | 21% | 31% | 29% | 33% |
| Grade 5 | 42% | 28% | 24% | 24% | 30% |
| Grade 6 | 16% | 13% | 17% | 18% | 24% |
| Grade 7 | 24% | 15% | 24% | 21% | 31% |
| Grade 8 | 29% | 17% | 15% | 15% | 19% |
The story this school is actually telling
The school, grade by grade
ELA · CAASPP 2024–25Different students, same year — each bar is one grade's proficiency mix.
The honest read: the share exceeding rises 2.7pp across grades; the floor rises 14.6pp. The state average rises 4.5pp over the same span. Kids here gain ground the longer they stay — the pattern you want to see. A school visit and conversation with teachers will tell you more than this number.
The 5 things our score weighs
Ask what the school is working on next. Strong numbers tell you where a school is, not where it's going.
- Ask whether the tour can step into a working classroom — watch how the teacher handles a student who's stuck.
- Ask to tour while school's in session, and notice how hallways and transitions feel — culture shows up between classes, not just in them.
- Ask how the school communicates with families when a child starts to struggle.
- Ask what a typical day looks like for a new student in the first few weeks.
How every group of students does here
At Alianza Charter in Watsonville, 37.7% of low-income students met or exceeded the ELA standard in 2025, compared to 19.9% district-wide and 38.2% statewide. Alianza Charter outperforms its district average for low-income students by 17.8 percentage points in ELA. Other subgroups: Low-Income students (24.0% Math proficient); Hispanic students (42.2% ELA proficient). The largest proficiency gap is 29.5 percentage points for english learner students. Data source: California Department of Education, CAASPP 2024-25. 300 students tested.
Change in proficiency from the lowest tested grade — which groups gain ground the longer they stay. Groups with fewer than 10 tested students per grade are not shown.
Low-income student ELA proficiency rises by 12.3pp from grade 3 to grade 5 at this school. District average: +6.2pp.
Showing up, and staying in class
TK/K students miss school at roughly twice the rate of Grades 7–8 students (30.3% vs 16.0%). Chronic absence here concentrates in the earliest grades — worth asking how the school works with new families on attendance.
Where the path goes
The path below follows attendance boundaries — scores shown for each next step.
Estimated path based on proximity within the same district. Contact your school district for official feeder information.
The people teaching here
Pay is set by the district, not the school.
What gets spent here
$488 per student arrives as federal Title funding — a measure of concentrated need, not school quality.
The district's current expense of education per student, from CDE's annual SACS filing — the freshest district spending figure the state publishes.
District-level, from the district's own SACS general-ledger filing — school-by-school breakdowns aren't published by the state.
Source: NCES F-33 · Full district breakdown →
The neighborhood it serves
Source: U.S. Census Bureau, American Community Survey 5-year estimates (2024) · ZIP-level
On the state's science test (CAST), 25% met or exceeded the standard — science is tested in grades 5 and 8 but never enters the Scope Score.
Frequently asked questions
Is Alianza Charter a good elementary school?
What are Alianza Charter's CAASPP test scores?
How does Alianza Charter rank in California?
Is Alianza Charter getting better or worse?
What is the attendance and school culture like at Alianza Charter?
How does Alianza Charter compare to other schools in Watsonville?
How does Alianza Charter serve low-income and underrepresented students?
Your other options
Nearby Elementary Schools
3 within ~3 mi · avg 29
Nearby Middle Schools
2 within ~3 mi · avg 21
Private alternatives nearby
Private schools within ~10 miles. These schools do not participate in state testing and cannot be scored or ranked.
A low score doesn't tell the whole story. Read: Your School Scored Low — Here's What That Actually Means
Every number on this page
Score factors, grade-level breakdowns, subgroup proficiency, and peer comparisons.
| ELA | Tested | EXC | MET | NEAR | NOT | MET+ | +/CA |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Grade 3 | 78 | 17% | 18% | 32% | 33% | 35% | −9 |
| Grade 4 | 61 | 11% | 28% | 20% | 41% | 39% | −5 |
| Grade 5 | 67 | 19% | 30% | 30% | 21% | 49% | +1 |
| Grade 6 | 63 | 13% | 40% | 30% | 17% | 52% | +6 |
| Grade 7 | 58 | 7% | 43% | 26% | 24% | 50% | +2 |
| Grade 8 | 59 | 5% | 25% | 24% | 46% | 31% | −16 |
| Math | Tested | EXC | MET | NEAR | NOT | MET+ | +/CA |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Grade 3 | 78 | 12% | 18% | 28% | 42% | 29% | −16 |
| Grade 4 | 61 | 8% | 25% | 26% | 41% | 33% | −9 |
| Grade 5 | 67 | 9% | 21% | 40% | 30% | 30% | −5 |
| Grade 6 | 63 | 6% | 17% | 25% | 51% | 24% | −11 |
| Grade 7 | 58 | 14% | 17% | 17% | 52% | 31% | −3 |
| Grade 8 | 59 | 5% | 14% | 20% | 61% | 19% | −14 |
| Science (CAST) | Tested | EXC | MET | NEAR | NOT |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Grade 5/8/11 | 126 | 7% | 17% | 65% | 10% |
CAST is tested in grades 5, 8, and once in high school — not annually. Not part of the Scope Score.
| Subgroup · ELA | Tested | MET+ | vs district | vs CA |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Socioeconomically Disadvantaged | 300 | 37.7% | +18 | −1 |
| Hispanic/Latino | 377 | 42.2% | +21 | +3 |
| English Learners | 125 | 16.8% | +11 | +6 |
| School | Dist | Scope | EXC | MET+ | Growth | Susp |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Alianza Charter ← | — | 41 | 12.7% | 35.9% | +7.5 | 1.3% |
| Watsonville Charter School of the Arts | 0 mi | 32 | 5.2% | 24.5% | −6.0 | 1.2% |
| H. A. Hyde Elementary | 3.2 mi | 29 | 4.4% | 14.5% | −0.5 | 1.6% |
| Ann Soldo Elementary | 2.5 mi | 27 | 3.5% | 13.9% | −4.3 | 0.8% |
| California average | — | 45 | 21.3% | 42.7% | −2.9 | 1.6% |
| Year | Scope | Pctile | Rank | Exc | Met+ | Absent | Susp | Growth |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2019 | 41 | 46 | #2966 | 16.9% | 43.4% | 7.0% | 0.7% | -6.6pp |
| 2022 | 31 | 37 | #3635 | 9.8% | 30.3% | 31.0% | 0.4% | +0.2pp |
| 2023 | 34 | 38 | #3548 | 12.3% | 36.2% | 30.2% | 0.8% | -5.4pp |
| 2024 | 38 | 41 | #3376 | 13.1% | 36.1% | 21.9% | 1.0% | -14.1pp |
| 2025 | 41 | 46 | #3111 | 12.7% | 35.9% | 21.0% | 1.3% | +7.5pp |
- — Scored here as an elementary school — other grade spans appear in the data appendix.
| Group | 2019 | 2025 | Δ |
|---|---|---|---|
| Female | 7.0% | 23.7% | +16.7pp |
| Male | 7.0% | 18.7% | +11.7pp |
| Hispanic/Latino | 7.0% | 20.5% | +13.5pp |
| Students with Disabilities | 7.6% | 16.7% | +9.1pp |
| English Learners | 6.9% | 21.8% | +14.9pp |
| Homeless | 5.5% | 30.2% | +24.7pp |
| Military-Connected | 0.0% | 13.6% | +13.6pp |
| Socioeconomically Disadvantaged | 7.7% | 23.1% | +15.4pp |
| All Students | 7.0% | 21.2% | +14.2pp |
SchoolScope scores and verdicts are our interpretation of public California Department of Education data — independent analysis, not an official rating. How we analyze · Request a correction