Grizzly Hill: The scores are below where anyone wants them. Here's what they don't tell you.
Grizzly Hill posts low test scores — and the same students gain more here than at most schools between grade 3 and grade 5. If this is your zoned school, the numbers below are where to start a conversation, not where to end one.
| Scope | % Exceeded | % Met+ | Growth | Absence | Suspension | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| This school | 33 | 6% | 16% | — | 31.9% | 3.5% |
| CA average · Elementary School | 45 | 21% | 43% | -2.9 | 17.9% | 1.6% |
Grizzly Hill scores 33 of 100 on SchoolScope's Scope Score — the 25th 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 →
🌱 Building Momentum — This label means the data doesn't clearly sort the school one way or the other — ask what the school is proud of, and what it's working on.
Most rating sites would stop at “16% proficient” and call it done. Grizzly Hill deserves a closer read. The school sits in Nevada City, where four in five students qualify for free or reduced lunch — and reading the numbers without that context misreads the school.
Test scores are one lens, and at this school they're a rough one right now. The sections below show the fuller picture — including the parts that are working.
The seven-year arc
Has stayed near the 25th percentile since 2019.
This school hasn't fully recovered from the pandemic: 16% meet the standard today, versus 46% in 2019 — a gap worth asking about on a visit.
| Grade | 2019 | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Grade 3 | 50% | 36% | 8% | 18% | — |
| Grade 4 | — | 0% | 9% | 21% | — |
| Grade 5 | — | — | 0% | — | 25% |
| Grade 7 | 36% | 40% | — | — | — |
| Grade | 2019 | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Grade 3 | 42% | — | 25% | 8% | — |
| Grade 4 | — | 0% | 18% | 21% | — |
| Grade 5 | — | — | 0% | — | 6% |
The 4 things our score weighs
Ask what changed in the last two years, and what the school is asking families for. Growth shows up in these numbers a year or two after it shows up in classrooms.
- Ask how the school follows up when a student starts missing days — chronic absence often starts outside the classroom, not inside it.
- Ask what typically leads to a suspension, and what happens before it gets there.
- 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
7 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
Grades 7–8 students miss school at roughly one and a half times the rate of Grades 4–6 students (61.9% vs 38.5%). Chronic absence here concentrates in the upper grades.
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.
$5,335 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 105 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), 9% met or exceeded the standard — science is tested in grades 5 and 8 but never enters the Scope Score.
Frequently asked questions
Is Grizzly Hill a good elementary school?
What are Grizzly Hill's CAASPP test scores?
How does Grizzly Hill rank in California?
What is the attendance and school culture like at Grizzly Hill?
How does Grizzly Hill compare to other schools in Nevada City?
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.
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 | 7 | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Grade 4 | 8 | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Grade 5 | 16 | 13% | 13% | 38% | 38% | 25% | −23 |
| Grade 6 | 10 | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Grade 7 | 10 | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Grade 8 | 6 | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Math | Tested | EXC | MET | NEAR | NOT | MET+ | +/CA |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Grade 3 | 7 | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Grade 4 | 8 | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Grade 5 | 16 | 0% | 6% | 25% | 69% | 6% | −29 |
| Grade 6 | 10 | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Grade 7 | 10 | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Grade 8 | 6 | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Science (CAST) | Tested | EXC | MET | NEAR | NOT |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Grade 5/8/11 | 22 | 0% | 9% | 45% | 45% |
CAST is tested in grades 5, 8, and once in high school — not annually. Not part of the Scope Score.
| School | Dist | Scope | EXC | MET+ | Growth | Susp |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Grizzly Hill ← | — | 33 | 6.3% | 15.6% | — | 3.5% |
| California average | — | 45 | 21.3% | 42.7% | −2.9 | 1.6% |
| Year | Scope | Pctile | Rank | Exc | Met+ | Absent | Susp | Growth |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2019 | 31 | 20 | #4406 | 12.5% | 45.8% | 32.5% | 3.9% | — |
| 2022 | 10 | 1 | #5676 | 3.0% | 12.1% | 69.1% | 5.0% | — |
| 2023 | 17 | 2 | #5590 | 3.0% | 10.1% | 68.7% | 0.1% | -16.7pp |
| 2024 | 19 | 3 | #5557 | 2.1% | 17.3% | 50.0% | 0.6% | — |
| 2025 | 33 | 25 | #4317 | 6.3% | 15.6% | 31.9% | 3.5% | — |
- — Growth data isn't available — the state needs matched grades across years to compute it.
- — Subgroup results are suppressed for small student counts (fewer than 15 tested), following CDE privacy rules.
- — Scored here as an elementary school — other grade spans appear in the data appendix.
| Group | 2019 | 2025 | Δ |
|---|---|---|---|
| Female | 29.5% | 40.0% | +10.5pp |
| Male | 44.8% | 48.4% | +3.6pp |
| Two or More Races | 60.0% | — | — |
| Students with Disabilities | 31.8% | 44.4% | +12.6pp |
| Socioeconomically Disadvantaged | 36.6% | 44.4% | +7.8pp |
| All Students | 38.2% | 44.9% | +6.7pp |
| Hispanic/Latino | — | 54.5% | — |
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