Hermosa Valley Elementary: The score is strong. The trajectory is stronger.
Hermosa Valley pairs 74% proficiency with gains that hold up when the same students are tracked two years apart — the rare school that posts both.
| Scope | % Exceeded | % Met+ | Growth | Absence | Suspension | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| This school | 70 | 40% | 74% | +10.8 | 9.8% | 1.9% |
| CA average · Middle School | 43 | 17% | 39% | +1.5 | 18.5% | 3.7% |
Hermosa Valley Elementary scores 70 of 100 on SchoolScope's Scope Score — the 94th 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 →
🚀 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 “74% proficient” and call it done. Hermosa Valley deserves a closer read. It sits at the 94th percentile of 2,238 California middle schools — but the ranking is the least interesting thing on this page.
Hermosa Valley's low-income kids hit 65.4% 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 94th-percentile line every tested year since 2019.
Proficiency here is back to its pre-pandemic level — 74% meet the standard, about where the school stood in 2019.
| Grade | 2019 | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Grade 4 | 83% | 79% | — | — | — |
| Grade 5 | 77% | 80% | 76% | 74% | 73% |
| Grade 6 | 79% | 70% | 70% | 77% | 72% |
| Grade 7 | 81% | 89% | 85% | 86% | 84% |
| Grade 8 | 80% | 81% | 84% | 83% | 80% |
| Grade | 2019 | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Grade 4 | 79% | 84% | — | — | — |
| Grade 5 | 70% | 74% | 76% | 72% | 66% |
| Grade 6 | 73% | 63% | 67% | 67% | 60% |
| Grade 7 | 67% | 74% | 74% | 75% | 76% |
| Grade 8 | 78% | 61% | 69% | 73% | 73% |
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 14.3pp across grades; the floor rises 7.9pp. The state average falls 0.5pp 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.
Hermosa Valley's most underrated number
65.4% 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 5 things our score weighs
Ask what changed — new curriculum, new principal, new program. Momentum has a cause, and a visit will find it.
- 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 Hermosa Valley Elementary in Hermosa Beach, 65.4% of low-income students met or exceeded the ELA standard in 2025, compared to 67.9% district-wide and 38.2% statewide. Hermosa Valley Elementary trails its district average for low-income students by 2.6 percentage points in ELA. Other subgroups: Low-Income students (48.1% Math proficient); White students (77.1% ELA proficient). The largest proficiency gap is 39.6 percentage points for disabilities students. Data source: California Department of Education, CAASPP 2024-25. 52 students tested.
6 of 14 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.
Low-income student ELA proficiency rises by 4.8pp from grade 6 to grade 8 at this school. District average: +4.8pp.
Showing up, and staying in class
Grades 7–8 students miss school at roughly twice the rate of Grades 4–6 students (12.6% vs 6.3%). Chronic absence here concentrates in the upper grades.
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
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.
$678 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), 62% met or exceeded the standard — science is tested in grades 5 and 8 but never enters the Scope Score.
Frequently asked questions
Is Hermosa Valley Elementary a good middle school?
What are Hermosa Valley Elementary's CAASPP test scores?
How does Hermosa Valley Elementary rank in California?
Is Hermosa Valley Elementary getting better or worse?
What is the attendance and school culture like at Hermosa Valley Elementary?
How does Hermosa Valley Elementary compare to other schools in Hermosa Beach?
How does Hermosa Valley Elementary serve low-income and underrepresented students?
Your other options
Nearby Middle Schools
3 within ~3 mi · avg 68
Nearby Elementary Schools
3 within ~3 mi · avg 88
Nearby High Schools
3 within ~3 mi · avg 71
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 5 | 140 | 39% | 34% | 16% | 11% | 73% | +25 |
| Grade 6 | 139 | 27% | 45% | 26% | 2% | 72% | +25 |
| Grade 7 | 148 | 45% | 39% | 11% | 5% | 84% | +36 |
| Grade 8 | 154 | 41% | 39% | 16% | 5% | 80% | +34 |
| Math | Tested | EXC | MET | NEAR | NOT | MET+ | +/CA |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Grade 5 | 140 | 39% | 27% | 21% | 14% | 66% | +30 |
| Grade 6 | 139 | 32% | 27% | 30% | 11% | 60% | +25 |
| Grade 7 | 148 | 47% | 29% | 18% | 6% | 76% | +42 |
| Grade 8 | 154 | 49% | 24% | 16% | 11% | 73% | +41 |
| Science (CAST) | Tested | EXC | MET | NEAR | NOT |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Grade 5/8/11 | 294 | 28% | 34% | 34% | 4% |
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 | 52 | 65.4% | −3 | +27 |
| White | 350 | 77.1% | −3 | +15 |
| Two or More Races | 106 | 81.1% | −1 | +20 |
| School | Dist | Scope | EXC | MET+ | Growth | Susp |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hermosa Valley Elementary ← | — | 70 | 40.3% | 74.2% | +10.8 | 1.9% |
| Manhattan Beach Middle | 1.7 mi | 72 | 48.3% | 77.3% | −1.4 | 2.1% |
| Jefferson Middle | 3.2 mi | 67 | 39.6% | 68.2% | −1.1 | 2.4% |
| Bert M. Lynn Middle | 2.1 mi | 66 | 41.6% | 71.2% | −8.4 | 1.5% |
| California average | — | 43 | 16.8% | 39.3% | +1.5 | 3.7% |
| Year | Scope | Pctile | Rank | Exc | Met+ | Absent | Susp | Growth |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2019 | 67 | 93 | #150 | 41.5% | 76.2% | 5.7% | 2.3% | +3.2pp |
| 2022 | 72 | 95 | #102 | 41.8% | 72.8% | 9.9% | 0.3% | +4.3pp |
| 2023 | 76 | 95 | #99 | 41.1% | 74.7% | 14.3% | 0.7% | +8.1pp |
| 2024 | 80 | 97 | #60 | 44.4% | 76.8% | 9.0% | 0.3% | +6.2pp |
| 2025 | 70 | 94 | #141 | 40.3% | 74.2% | 9.8% | 1.9% | +10.8pp |
| Group | 2019 | 2025 | Δ |
|---|---|---|---|
| Female | 4.8% | 10.4% | +5.6pp |
| Male | 6.4% | 8.8% | +2.4pp |
| Asian | 4.3% | 3.6% | -0.7pp |
| Hispanic/Latino | 5.6% | 10.9% | +5.3pp |
| Two or More Races | 1.5% | 10.2% | +8.7pp |
| Students with Disabilities | 5.5% | 17.2% | +11.7pp |
| English Learners | 28.6% | 20.0% | -8.6pp |
| Socioeconomically Disadvantaged | 13.0% | 11.9% | -1.1pp |
| All Students | 5.7% | 9.5% | +3.8pp |
| Filipino | — | 0.0% | — |
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