Highlands Elementary: No single number tells this school's story. Here's the honest picture.
Highlands posts 37% meeting the standard and 15.2% exceeding it, against 43% and 21.3% statewide. The gaps and the bright spots below are the real read.
| Scope | % Exceeded | % Met+ | Growth | Absence | Suspension | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| This school | 45 | 15% | 37% | +8.6 | 21.4% | 0.6% |
| CA average · Elementary School | 45 | 21% | 43% | -2.9 | 17.9% | 1.6% |
Highlands Elementary scores 45 of 100 on SchoolScope's Scope Score — the 56th 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 “37% proficient” and call it done. Highlands deserves a closer read. The school sits in Spring Valley, where two-thirds of students qualify for free or reduced lunch — and reading the numbers without that context misreads the school.
The seven-year arc
Climbed from the 27th to the 56th percentile since 2019 — past roughly 1500 elementary schools.
Proficiency here is back to its pre-pandemic level — 37% meet the standard, about where the school stood in 2019.
| Grade | 2019 | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Grade 3 | 46% | 25% | 38% | 31% | 33% |
| Grade 4 | 33% | 38% | 38% | 45% | 47% |
| Grade 5 | 41% | 32% | 36% | 50% | 53% |
| Grade 6 | 44% | 35% | 33% | 32% | — |
| Grade | 2019 | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Grade 3 | 44% | 21% | 31% | 27% | 27% |
| Grade 4 | 30% | 35% | 33% | 34% | 40% |
| Grade 5 | 22% | 12% | 21% | 31% | 25% |
| Grade 6 | 40% | 25% | 19% | 16% | — |
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 13.7pp across grades; the floor rises 19.6pp. 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 6 things our score weighs
Ask what the school is working on next. Strong numbers tell you where a school is, not where it's going.
- 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 Highlands Elementary in Spring Valley, 41.2% of low-income students met or exceeded the ELA standard in 2025, compared to 37.3% district-wide and 38.2% statewide. Highlands Elementary outperforms its district average for low-income students by 3.9 percentage points in ELA. Other subgroups: Low-Income students (26.5% Math proficient); Hispanic students (39.0% ELA proficient). The largest proficiency gap is 5.5 percentage points for hispanic students. Data source: California Department of Education, CAASPP 2024-25. 131 students tested.
9 of 16 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 23.7pp from grade 3 to grade 5 at this school. District average: +2.6pp.
Showing up, and staying in class
TK/K students miss school at roughly twice the rate of Grades 4–6 students (32.9% vs 18.0%). Chronic absence here concentrates in the earliest grades — worth asking how the school works with new families on attendance.
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
$636 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
Transitional kindergarten is offered here — confirmed by actual Census Day enrollment, not just the listed grade span.
On the state's science test (CAST), 32% met or exceeded the standard — science is tested in grades 5 and 8 but never enters the Scope Score.
Frequently asked questions
Is Highlands Elementary a good elementary school?
What are Highlands Elementary's CAASPP test scores?
How does Highlands Elementary rank in California?
Is Highlands Elementary getting better or worse?
What is the attendance and school culture like at Highlands Elementary?
How does Highlands Elementary compare to other schools in Spring Valley?
How does Highlands Elementary serve low-income and underrepresented students?
Your other options
Nearby Elementary Schools
3 within ~3 mi · avg 50
Nearby Middle Schools
3 within ~3 mi · avg 53
Nearby High Schools
2 within ~3 mi · avg 38
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 | 51 | 10% | 24% | 22% | 45% | 33% | −10 |
| Grade 4 | 60 | 23% | 23% | 15% | 38% | 47% | +2 |
| Grade 5 | 51 | 24% | 29% | 16% | 31% | 53% | +5 |
| Math | Tested | EXC | MET | NEAR | NOT | MET+ | +/CA |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Grade 3 | 52 | 6% | 21% | 25% | 48% | 27% | −19 |
| Grade 4 | 62 | 19% | 21% | 21% | 39% | 40% | −1 |
| Grade 5 | 53 | 9% | 15% | 36% | 40% | 25% | −11 |
| Science (CAST) | Tested | EXC | MET | NEAR | NOT |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Grade 5/8/11 | 53 | 8% | 25% | 60% | 8% |
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 | 131 | 41.2% | +4 | +3 |
| Hispanic/Latino | 105 | 39.0% | −0 | +0 |
| School | Dist | Scope | EXC | MET+ | Growth | Susp |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Highlands Elementary ← | — | 45 | 15.2% | 37.5% | +8.6 | 0.6% |
| Fuerte Elementary | 2.7 mi | 55 | 31.4% | 58.2% | −5.2 | 1.3% |
| Murdock Elementary | 1.5 mi | 49 | 33.2% | 58.3% | −18.3 | 1.2% |
| Loma Elementary | 0.7 mi | 45 | 13.3% | 35.9% | +11.9 | 0.9% |
| California average | — | 45 | 21.3% | 42.7% | −2.9 | 1.6% |
| Year | Scope | Pctile | Rank | Exc | Met+ | Absent | Susp | Growth |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2019 | 34 | 27 | #4011 | 17.2% | 36.0% | 16.6% | 4.7% | -13.6pp |
| 2022 | 29 | 30 | #4021 | 8.9% | 27.0% | 44.7% | 3.0% | -1.2pp |
| 2023 | 31 | 28 | #4099 | 11.4% | 32.8% | 33.5% | 1.8% | -5.9pp |
| 2024 | 52 | 72 | #1600 | 15.1% | 36.3% | 24.2% | 0.7% | +11.7pp |
| 2025 | 45 | 56 | #2502 | 15.2% | 37.5% | 21.4% | 0.6% | +8.6pp |
| Group | 2019 | 2025 | Δ |
|---|---|---|---|
| Female | 14.8% | 22.0% | +7.2pp |
| Male | 18.6% | 21.5% | +2.9pp |
| Black/African American | 21.8% | 29.6% | +7.8pp |
| Hispanic/Latino | 18.5% | 24.3% | +5.8pp |
| Two or More Races | 16.7% | 4.3% | -12.4pp |
| Students with Disabilities | 20.6% | 20.3% | -0.3pp |
| English Learners | 14.9% | 23.1% | +8.2pp |
| Homeless | 48.1% | 31.0% | -17.1pp |
| Socioeconomically Disadvantaged | 18.4% | 24.2% | +5.8pp |
| All Students | 16.7% | 21.7% | +5.0pp |
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