Cayucos Elementary: Most kids here clear the bar, year after year. The question is what happens after that.
Cayucos posts 66% meeting the standard, and 41.4% going well past it. Most kids here keep up. Fewer get pushed further. Ask the school what it does for a child who already finds the work easy.
| Scope | % Exceeded | % Met+ | Growth | Absence | Suspension | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| This school | 64 | 41% | 66% | -20.9 | 9.3% | 1.5% |
| CA average · Elementary School | 45 | 21% | 43% | -2.9 | 17.9% | 1.6% |
Cayucos Elementary scores 64 of 100 on SchoolScope's Scope Score — the 87th 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 →
🏫 Solid Base — Ask what the school does for a kid who's already meeting the standard with room to spare — steady proficiency across the board doesn't tell you whether the strongest kids are being pushed further.
Most rating sites would stop at “66% proficient” and call it done. Cayucos deserves a closer read. It sits at the 87th percentile of 5,744 California elementary schools — but the ranking is the least interesting thing on this page.
The headline number: 9.3% chronic absenteeism — versus 17.9% statewide. Attendance is the quietest strong signal a school can post.
The seven-year arc
Climbed from the 71st to the 87th percentile since 2019 — past roughly 800 elementary schools.
Proficiency here is back to its pre-pandemic level — 66% meet the standard, about where the school stood in 2019.
| Grade | 2019 | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Grade 3 | 74% | 69% | 67% | 68% | 78% |
| Grade 4 | 68% | 72% | 75% | 45% | 68% |
| Grade 5 | 69% | 72% | 78% | 71% | 67% |
| Grade 6 | 67% | 70% | 63% | 59% | 69% |
| Grade 7 | 59% | 75% | 67% | 56% | 60% |
| Grade 8 | 53% | 56% | 68% | 75% | 68% |
| Grade | 2019 | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Grade 3 | 52% | 77% | 61% | 68% | 83% |
| Grade 4 | 74% | 65% | 92% | 50% | 50% |
| Grade 5 | 44% | 39% | 57% | 43% | 52% |
| Grade 6 | 50% | 63% | 38% | 64% | 54% |
| Grade 7 | 65% | 70% | 71% | 44% | 58% |
| Grade 8 | 40% | 50% | 56% | 69% | 32% |
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 falls 27.5pp across grades; the floor slips 11.6pp. The state average rises 4.5pp over the same span. A school visit and conversation with teachers will tell you more than this number.
The 5 things our score weighs
Ask how the school challenges kids who clear the standard early. The gap between meeting and exceeding is where pacing shows.
- Ask what changes between grade 3 and grade 5 here, and who teaches the older kids.
- 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 Cayucos Elementary in Cayucos, 72.6% of white students met or exceeded the ELA standard in 2025, compared to 72.6% district-wide and 61.8% statewide. Cayucos Elementary outperforms its district average for white students by 0.0 percentage points in ELA. Other subgroups: White students (58.1% Math proficient). Data source: California Department of Education, CAASPP 2024-25. 62 students tested.
8 of 12 student groups here are too small to report — a privacy protection, not a gap.
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.
Showing up, and staying in class
TK/K students miss school at roughly three times the rate of Grades 7–8 students (13.0% vs 2.2%). Chronic absence here concentrates in the earliest grades — worth asking how the school works with new families on attendance.
Where the path goes
Cayucos Elementary serves grades TK-8. We don’t have attendance-boundary data showing which high school students here continue to, and we’d rather leave this blank than guess from whichever school happens to be nearest. The district office can tell you which high school your address is zoned for.
The people teaching here
Pay is set by the district, not the school.
What gets spent here
$569 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.
The neighborhood it serves
Source: U.S. Census Bureau, American Community Survey 5-year estimates (2024) · ZIP-level
At 185 students, this school is much smaller than the typical California elementary school (≈480).
Transitional kindergarten is offered here — confirmed by actual Census Day enrollment, not just the listed grade span.
On the state's science test (CAST), 58% met or exceeded the standard — science is tested in grades 5 and 8 and once in high school, and it never enters the Scope Score.
Frequently asked questions
Is Cayucos Elementary a good elementary school?
What are Cayucos Elementary's CAASPP test scores?
How does Cayucos Elementary rank in California?
Is Cayucos Elementary getting better or worse?
What is the attendance and school culture like at Cayucos Elementary?
How does Cayucos Elementary compare to other schools in Cayucos?
How does Cayucos Elementary serve low-income and underrepresented students?
Your other options
Private alternatives nearby
Private schools within ~10 miles. These schools do not participate in state testing and cannot be scored or ranked.
Every number on this page
Score factors, grade-level breakdowns, subgroup proficiency, and nearest schools.
| ELA | Tested | EXC | MET | NEAR | NOT | MET+ | +/CA |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Grade 3 | 23 | 61% | 17% | 9% | 13% | 78% | +35 |
| Grade 4 | 22 | 41% | 27% | 23% | 9% | 68% | +23 |
| Grade 5 | 21 | 33% | 33% | 14% | 19% | 67% | +19 |
| Grade 6 | 13 | 46% | 23% | 15% | 15% | 69% | +23 |
| Grade 7 | 25 | 28% | 32% | 24% | 16% | 60% | +12 |
| Grade 8 | 19 | 32% | 37% | 11% | 21% | 68% | +22 |
| Math | Tested | EXC | MET | NEAR | NOT | MET+ | +/CA |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Grade 3 | 23 | 43% | 39% | 13% | 4% | 83% | +37 |
| Grade 4 | 22 | 41% | 9% | 32% | 18% | 50% | +8 |
| Grade 5 | 21 | 29% | 24% | 24% | 24% | 52% | +17 |
| Grade 6 | 13 | 8% | 46% | 31% | 15% | 54% | +19 |
| Grade 7 | 26 | 35% | 23% | 12% | 31% | 58% | +24 |
| Grade 8 | 19 | 26% | 5% | 47% | 21% | 32% | −1 |
We show the grade rows CDE publishes for this school. A missing grade or dash can mean the school does not serve that grade, no valid result was published, or the tested group was too small to report. It does not mean zero.
| Science (CAST) | Tested | EXC | MET | NEAR | NOT |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Schoolwide | 40 | 13% | 45% | 40% | 3% |
CAST is tested in grades 5 and 8, then once in grade 10, 11, or 12. This row is the school's all-student aggregate. Not part of the Scope Score.
| Subgroup · ELA | Tested | MET+ | vs district | vs CA |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| White | 62 | 72.6% | +0 | +11 |
| School | Dist | Scope | EXC | MET+ | Growth | Susp |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cayucos Elementary ← | — | 64 | 41.4% | 66.3% | −20.9 | 1.5% |
| California average | — | 45 | 21.3% | 42.7% | −2.9 | 1.6% |
| Year | Scope | Pctile | Rank | Exc | Met+ | Absent | Susp | Growth |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2019 | 53 | 71 | #1579 | 34.6% | 63.5% | 15.4% | 2.1% | -6.8pp |
| 2022 | 49 | 74 | #1474 | 31.4% | 65.8% | 31.5% | 2.2% | -17.5pp |
| 2023 | 66 | 89 | #612 | 35.5% | 71.5% | — | 3.9% | +3.5pp |
| 2024 | 51 | 71 | #1655 | 29.1% | 57.6% | 14.1% | 2.5% | -11.0pp |
| 2025 | 64 | 87 | #751 | 41.4% | 66.3% | 9.3% | 1.5% | -20.9pp |
- — Scored here as an elementary school — other grade spans appear in the data appendix.
| Group | 2019 | 2025 | Δ |
|---|---|---|---|
| Female | 18.6% | 7.5% | -11.1pp |
| Male | 11.9% | 7.0% | -4.9pp |
| Hispanic/Latino | 15.6% | 13.0% | -2.6pp |
| Two or More Races | 15.4% | — | — |
| Students with Disabilities | 26.1% | 5.6% | -20.5pp |
| Homeless | 33.3% | — | — |
| Socioeconomically Disadvantaged | 16.7% | 16.3% | -0.4pp |
| All Students | 15.6% | 7.3% | -8.3pp |
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