Dorothy McElhinney Middle: Most kids here clear the bar, year after year. The question is what happens after that.
Dorothy McElhinney posts 63% meeting the standard, and 29.6% 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 | 61 | 30% | 63% | +2.0 | 11.6% | 1.8% |
| CA average · Middle School | 43 | 17% | 39% | +1.5 | 18.5% | 3.7% |
Dorothy McElhinney Middle scores 61 of 100 on SchoolScope's Scope Score — the 87th percentile of 2,238 California middle schools (CDE CAASPP 2025).
Measures test performance, attendance, and climate — not arts, community, or your kid. How we score →
💪 Strong All-Around — Ask about what we don't score — class size, electives, the feel of a classroom — strong numbers everywhere on paper don't mean every classroom feels the same.
Most rating sites would stop at “63% proficient” and call it done. Dorothy McElhinney deserves a closer read. The school sits in Murrieta, where two in five students qualify for free or reduced lunch — and reading the numbers without that context misreads the school.
Dorothy McElhinney's low-income kids hit 68.1% proficiency in ELA — a number the same group reaches at 38.2% statewide. If you're trying to read past zip-code-driven test scores, that's the signal worth weighing.
The seven-year arc
Has held the 87th-percentile line every tested year since 2019.
Proficiency here is back to its pre-pandemic level — 63% meet the standard, about where the school stood in 2019.
| Grade | 2019 | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Grade 6 | 66% | 64% | 65% | 69% | 69% |
| Grade 7 | 73% | 76% | 73% | 78% | 77% |
| Grade 8 | 69% | 59% | 65% | 65% | 73% |
| Grade | 2019 | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Grade 6 | 57% | 39% | 39% | 45% | 54% |
| Grade 7 | 55% | 44% | 40% | 46% | 51% |
| Grade 8 | 57% | 40% | 45% | 48% | 53% |
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 2.5pp across grades; the floor rises 4.1pp. The state average falls 0.5pp over the same span. A school visit and conversation with teachers will tell you more than this number.
Dorothy McElhinney's most underrated number
68.1% of low-income students met the ELA standard — versus 38.2% for the same group statewide. That's the strongest kind of signal a school can post: it holds across income lines.
The 6 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 whether extra support — tutoring, counseling, small groups — reaches kids across income lines, not just the students already ahead.
- 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 Dorothy McElhinney Middle in Murrieta, 68.1% of low-income students met or exceeded the ELA standard in 2025, compared to 56.0% district-wide and 38.2% statewide. Dorothy McElhinney Middle outperforms its district average for low-income students by 12.2 percentage points in ELA. Other subgroups: Low-Income students (47.5% Math proficient); Hispanic students (69.7% ELA proficient). The largest proficiency gap is 40.8 percentage points for disabilities students. Data source: California Department of Education, CAASPP 2024-25. 665 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 7.1pp from grade 6 to grade 8 at this school. District average: +2.8pp.
Showing up, and staying in class
Where the path goes
The path below follows attendance boundaries — scores shown for each next step.
Feeder patterns derived from NCES attendance boundary data. Boundaries are approximate and may have changed — verify with your school district for current assignments.
The people teaching here
Pay is set by the district, not the school.
What gets spent here
These measure different things: this figure is spending attributed to this campus, while district-wide figures also include central administration, districtwide programs, and the state's pension contributions made on the district's behalf — costs that never get assigned to a single school. The district number runs higher at nearly every school, not just this one.
$21 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
At 1,451 students, this school is well above the typical California middle school (≈860).
On the state's science test (CAST), 51% met or exceeded the standard — science is tested in grades 5 and 8 but never enters the Scope Score.
Frequently asked questions
Is Dorothy McElhinney Middle a good middle school?
What are Dorothy McElhinney Middle's CAASPP test scores?
How does Dorothy McElhinney Middle rank in California?
Is Dorothy McElhinney Middle getting better or worse?
What is the attendance and school culture like at Dorothy McElhinney Middle?
How does Dorothy McElhinney Middle compare to other schools in Murrieta?
How does Dorothy McElhinney Middle serve low-income and underrepresented students?
Your other options
Nearby Elementary Schools
3 within ~3 mi · avg 53
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 peer comparisons.
| ELA | Tested | EXC | MET | NEAR | NOT | MET+ | +/CA |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Grade 6 | 436 | 31% | 37% | 20% | 11% | 69% | +22 |
| Grade 7 | 483 | 31% | 46% | 16% | 8% | 77% | +29 |
| Grade 8 | 505 | 29% | 44% | 21% | 6% | 73% | +27 |
| Math | Tested | EXC | MET | NEAR | NOT | MET+ | +/CA |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Grade 6 | 435 | 31% | 23% | 25% | 21% | 54% | +19 |
| Grade 7 | 482 | 25% | 26% | 28% | 22% | 51% | +17 |
| Grade 8 | 502 | 31% | 23% | 27% | 20% | 53% | +21 |
| Science (CAST) | Tested | EXC | MET | NEAR | NOT |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Grade 5/8/11 | 504 | 20% | 31% | 46% | 2% |
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 | 665 | 68.1% | +12 | +30 |
| Hispanic/Latino | 525 | 69.7% | +13 | +31 |
| White | 496 | 73.6% | +5 | +12 |
| School | Dist | Scope | EXC | MET+ | Growth | Susp |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Dorothy McElhinney Middle ← | — | 61 | 29.6% | 62.6% | +2.0 | 1.8% |
| California average | — | 43 | 16.8% | 39.3% | +1.5 | 3.7% |
| Year | Scope | Pctile | Rank | Exc | Met+ | Absent | Susp | Growth |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2019 | 56 | 82 | #353 | 27.9% | 62.9% | 4.9% | 1.6% | +1.7pp |
| 2022 | 47 | 74 | #566 | 21.1% | 53.6% | 25.8% | 3.0% | -2.4pp |
| 2023 | 54 | 77 | #498 | 22.2% | 54.4% | 16.3% | 2.4% | +3.1pp |
| 2024 | 57 | 85 | #336 | 24.8% | 58.6% | 12.3% | 1.3% | -0.2pp |
| 2025 | 61 | 87 | #291 | 29.6% | 62.6% | 11.6% | 1.8% | +2.0pp |
| Group | 2019 | 2025 | Δ |
|---|---|---|---|
| Female | 5.4% | 11.8% | +6.4pp |
| Male | 4.3% | 11.1% | +6.8pp |
| Asian | 2.7% | 4.4% | +1.7pp |
| Black/African American | 4.9% | 15.1% | +10.2pp |
| White | 1.1% | 6.5% | +5.4pp |
| Hispanic/Latino | 5.1% | 11.2% | +6.1pp |
| Pacific Islander | 0.0% | — | — |
| Two or More Races | 5.0% | 10.1% | +5.1pp |
| Students with Disabilities | 11.2% | 16.7% | +5.5pp |
| English Learners | 2.1% | 10.6% | +8.5pp |
| Foster Youth | 0.0% | — | — |
| Homeless | 4.8% | — | — |
| Socioeconomically Disadvantaged | 7.0% | 15.5% | +8.5pp |
| All Students | 4.9% | 11.5% | +6.6pp |
| Filipino | — | 25.0% | — |
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