Joe Stefani: No single number tells this school's story. Here's the honest picture.
Joe Stefani posts 30% meeting the standard and 11.3% 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 | 37 | 11% | 30% | +9.6 | 23.7% | 10.5% |
| CA average · Elementary School | 45 | 21% | 43% | -2.9 | 17.9% | 1.6% |
Joe Stefani scores 37 of 100 on SchoolScope's Scope Score — the 35th 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 →
📈 On the Rise — Ask how many years the improvement has held, not just the latest one — one strong cohort and a real turnaround can look identical in a single year of data.
Most rating sites would stop at “30% proficient” and call it done. Joe Stefani deserves a closer read. The school sits in Merced, where four in five students qualify for free or reduced lunch — and reading the numbers without that context misreads the school.
The seven-year arc
Climbed from the 15th to the 35th percentile since 2019 — past roughly 900 elementary schools.
This school hasn't fully recovered from the pandemic: 30% meet the standard today, versus 35% in 2019 — a gap worth asking about on a visit.
| Grade | 2019 | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Grade 3 | 46% | 19% | 23% | 32% | 22% |
| Grade 4 | 41% | 31% | 38% | 42% | 39% |
| Grade 5 | 39% | 30% | 26% | 25% | 42% |
| Grade 6 | 36% | 34% | 30% | 32% | 37% |
| Grade | 2019 | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Grade 3 | 36% | 23% | 27% | 40% | 24% |
| Grade 4 | 32% | 19% | 28% | 33% | 32% |
| Grade 5 | 15% | 19% | 10% | 12% | 23% |
| Grade 6 | 24% | 12% | 15% | 12% | 10% |
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 9.0pp across grades; the floor rises 20.1pp. 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 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
At Joe Stefani in Merced, 33.9% of low-income students met or exceeded the ELA standard in 2025, compared to 31.2% district-wide and 38.2% statewide. Joe Stefani outperforms its district average for low-income students by 2.7 percentage points in ELA. Other subgroups: Low-Income students (21.1% Math proficient); Hispanic students (33.2% ELA proficient). The largest proficiency gap is 30.4 percentage points for disabilities students. Data source: California Department of Education, CAASPP 2024-25. 552 students tested.
8 of 17 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 17.6pp from grade 3 to grade 5 at this school. District average: +6.6pp.
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
$165 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), 21% met or exceeded the standard — science is tested in grades 5 and 8 but never enters the Scope Score.
Frequently asked questions
Is Joe Stefani a good elementary school?
What are Joe Stefani's CAASPP test scores?
How does Joe Stefani rank in California?
Is Joe Stefani getting better or worse?
What is the attendance and school culture like at Joe Stefani?
How does Joe Stefani compare to other schools in Merced?
How does Joe Stefani serve low-income and underrepresented students?
Your other options
Nearby Elementary Schools
3 within ~3 mi · avg 32
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 | 127 | 6% | 17% | 29% | 49% | 22% | −21 |
| Grade 4 | 160 | 23% | 16% | 19% | 42% | 39% | −6 |
| Grade 5 | 166 | 14% | 28% | 19% | 39% | 42% | −6 |
| Grade 6 | 166 | 10% | 27% | 33% | 30% | 37% | −10 |
| Math | Tested | EXC | MET | NEAR | NOT | MET+ | +/CA |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Grade 3 | 128 | 6% | 18% | 23% | 52% | 24% | −21 |
| Grade 4 | 164 | 13% | 20% | 36% | 32% | 32% | −9 |
| Grade 5 | 168 | 5% | 18% | 26% | 51% | 23% | −12 |
| Grade 6 | 166 | 3% | 7% | 31% | 59% | 10% | −25 |
| Science (CAST) | Tested | EXC | MET | NEAR | NOT |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Grade 5/8/11 | 170 | 2% | 19% | 59% | 21% |
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 | 552 | 33.9% | +3 | −4 |
| Hispanic/Latino | 386 | 33.2% | +2 | −6 |
| Asian | 116 | 45.7% | +0 | −29 |
| School | Dist | Scope | EXC | MET+ | Growth | Susp |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Joe Stefani ← | — | 37 | 11.3% | 30.4% | +9.6 | 10.5% |
| McSwain Elementary | 2.6 mi | 43 | 19.3% | 47.1% | −26.9 | 2.3% |
| Leontine Gracey Elementary | 2.5 mi | 28 | 4.3% | 18.3% | +4.8 | 1.7% |
| Margaret Sheehy Elementary | 3 mi | 25 | 7.8% | 25.1% | −16.9 | 4.9% |
| California average | — | 45 | 21.3% | 42.7% | −2.9 | 1.6% |
| Year | Scope | Pctile | Rank | Exc | Met+ | Absent | Susp | Growth |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2019 | 29 | 15 | #4657 | 11.8% | 34.8% | 10.8% | 3.8% | -14.2pp |
| 2022 | 25 | 20 | #4583 | 7.8% | 23.4% | 51.4% | 4.5% | +3.5pp |
| 2023 | 27 | 17 | #4725 | 7.6% | 25.3% | 27.2% | 4.9% | -7.0pp |
| 2024 | 32 | 24 | #4353 | 11.0% | 30.7% | 17.7% | 4.7% | -17.1pp |
| 2025 | 37 | 35 | #3716 | 11.3% | 30.4% | 23.7% | 10.5% | +9.6pp |
| Group | 2019 | 2025 | Δ |
|---|---|---|---|
| Female | 12.0% | 24.5% | +12.5pp |
| Male | 9.6% | 23.3% | +13.7pp |
| Asian | 4.2% | 9.0% | +4.8pp |
| Black/African American | 9.7% | 51.9% | +42.2pp |
| Hispanic/Latino | 11.7% | 26.5% | +14.8pp |
| Two or More Races | 14.3% | 18.8% | +4.5pp |
| Students with Disabilities | 7.4% | 26.7% | +19.3pp |
| English Learners | 7.8% | 22.1% | +14.3pp |
| Foster Youth | 5.0% | 21.4% | +16.4pp |
| Socioeconomically Disadvantaged | 12.2% | 25.1% | +12.9pp |
| All Students | 10.8% | 23.9% | +13.1pp |
| Filipino | — | 8.3% | — |
| Homeless | — | 41.7% | — |
| Military-Connected | — | 16.7% | — |
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