Dunham Charter: Most kids here clear the bar, year after year. The question is what happens after that.
Dunham Charter posts 64% meeting the standard, and 36.4% 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 | 62 | 36% | 64% | +7.4 | 13.9% | 0.3% |
| CA average · Elementary School | 45 | 21% | 43% | -2.9 | 17.9% | 1.6% |
Dunham Charter scores 62 of 100 on SchoolScope's Scope Score — the 85th 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 →
🚀 Growth Engine — Ask how the school tracks each kid's growth year to year, and what happens when a kid stalls instead of gaining.
Most rating sites would stop at “64% proficient” and call it done. Dunham Charter deserves a closer read. The school sits in Petaluma, where one in four students qualify for free or reduced lunch — and reading the numbers without that context misreads the school.
As a charter, Dunham Charter enrolls by application rather than address. That changes how you get in, but it doesn't change the score.
The seven-year arc
Climbed from the 71st to the 85th percentile since 2019 — past roughly 800 elementary schools.
Proficiency here is back to its pre-pandemic level — 64% meet the standard, about where the school stood in 2019.
| Grade | 2019 | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Grade 3 | 78% | 64% | 53% | 52% | 48% |
| Grade 4 | 64% | 57% | 65% | 63% | 71% |
| Grade 5 | 68% | 67% | 42% | 64% | 72% |
| Grade | 2019 | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Grade 3 | 78% | 55% | 58% | 59% | 65% |
| Grade 4 | 60% | 57% | 58% | 75% | 71% |
| Grade 5 | 45% | 59% | 25% | 44% | 56% |
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 18.3pp across grades; the floor rises 24.4pp. 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 how the school challenges kids who clear the standard early. The gap between meeting and exceeding is where pacing shows.
- 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 Dunham Charter in Petaluma, 64.7% of white students met or exceeded the ELA standard in 2025, compared to 68.8% district-wide and 61.8% statewide. Dunham Charter trails its district average for white students by 4.0 percentage points in ELA. Other subgroups: White students (64.7% Math proficient). Data source: California Department of Education, CAASPP 2024-25. 51 students tested.
6 of 10 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 twice the rate of Grades 4–6 students (25.0% vs 10.5%). Chronic absence here concentrates in the earliest grades — worth asking how the school works with new families on attendance.
The people teaching here
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.
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 166 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), 44% met or exceeded the standard — science is tested in grades 5 and 8 but never enters the Scope Score.
Frequently asked questions
Is Dunham Charter a good elementary school?
What are Dunham Charter's CAASPP test scores?
How does Dunham Charter rank in California?
Is Dunham Charter getting better or worse?
What is the attendance and school culture like at Dunham Charter?
How does Dunham Charter compare to other schools in Petaluma?
How does Dunham Charter 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 peer comparisons.
| ELA | Tested | EXC | MET | NEAR | NOT | MET+ | +/CA |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Grade 3 | 23 | 26% | 22% | 30% | 22% | 48% | +4 |
| Grade 4 | 24 | 38% | 33% | 25% | 4% | 71% | +26 |
| Grade 5 | 18 | 44% | 28% | 22% | 6% | 72% | +24 |
| Grade 6 | 14 | 7% | 79% | 14% | 0% | 86% | +39 |
| Math | Tested | EXC | MET | NEAR | NOT | MET+ | +/CA |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Grade 3 | 23 | 43% | 22% | 26% | 9% | 65% | +20 |
| Grade 4 | 24 | 33% | 38% | 29% | 0% | 71% | +29 |
| Grade 5 | 18 | 33% | 22% | 28% | 17% | 56% | +20 |
| Grade 6 | 14 | 7% | 43% | 36% | 14% | 50% | +15 |
| Science (CAST) | Tested | EXC | MET | NEAR | NOT |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Grade 5/8/11 | 18 | 22% | 22% | 50% | 6% |
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| White | 51 | 64.7% | −4 | +3 |
| School | Dist | Scope | EXC | MET+ | Growth | Susp |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Dunham Charter ← | — | 62 | 36.4% | 63.8% | +7.4 | 0.3% |
| Thomas Page Academy | 1.7 mi | 31 | 4.4% | 11.7% | +8.2 | 5.0% |
| California average | — | 45 | 21.3% | 42.7% | −2.9 | 1.6% |
| Year | Scope | Pctile | Rank | Exc | Met+ | Absent | Susp | Growth |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2019 | 53 | 71 | #1620 | 35.7% | 65.7% | 5.8% | 0.1% | -21.4pp |
| 2022 | 47 | 72 | #1612 | 19.8% | 59.7% | 27.2% | 2.0% | +3.8pp |
| 2023 | 34 | 36 | #3648 | 25.8% | 50.0% | 25.7% | 0.1% | -21.9pp |
| 2024 | 56 | 78 | #1267 | 28.6% | 59.4% | 15.4% | 0.8% | -1.6pp |
| 2025 | 62 | 85 | #870 | 36.4% | 63.8% | 13.9% | 0.3% | +7.4pp |
| Group | 2019 | 2025 | Δ |
|---|---|---|---|
| Female | 5.1% | 16.7% | +11.6pp |
| Male | 5.6% | 9.7% | +4.1pp |
| Hispanic/Latino | 3.3% | 32.4% | +29.1pp |
| Two or More Races | 10.0% | 0.0% | -10.0pp |
| Students with Disabilities | 14.3% | 4.3% | -10.0pp |
| English Learners | 5.9% | — | — |
| Socioeconomically Disadvantaged | 13.9% | 18.9% | +5.0pp |
| All Students | 5.4% | 13.0% | +7.6pp |
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