John Murdy Elementary: The score is strong. The trajectory is stronger.
John Murdy pairs 69% 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 | 69 | 41% | 69% | +13.7 | 7.7% | 0.7% |
| CA average · Elementary School | 45 | 21% | 43% | -2.9 | 17.9% | 1.6% |
John Murdy Elementary scores 69 of 100 on SchoolScope's Scope Score — the 91st 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 “69% proficient” and call it done. John Murdy deserves a closer read. The school sits in Garden Grove, where two-thirds of students qualify for free or reduced lunch — and reading the numbers without that context misreads the school.
John Murdy's low-income kids hit 66.8% 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 91st-percentile line every tested year since 2019.
Proficiency here is back to its pre-pandemic level — 69% meet the standard, about where the school stood in 2019.
| Grade | 2019 | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Grade 3 | 72% | 72% | 71% | 55% | 57% |
| Grade 4 | 68% | 63% | 66% | 77% | 71% |
| Grade 5 | 70% | 67% | 72% | 80% | 86% |
| Grade 6 | 71% | 61% | 64% | 70% | 75% |
| Grade | 2019 | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Grade 3 | 74% | 74% | 67% | 55% | 67% |
| Grade 4 | 59% | 71% | 74% | 70% | 71% |
| Grade 5 | 71% | 62% | 70% | 72% | 66% |
| Grade 6 | 69% | 58% | 56% | 70% | 74% |
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 18.1pp across grades; the floor rises 28.6pp. 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.
John Murdy's most underrated number
66.8% 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 6 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 John Murdy Elementary in Garden Grove, 66.8% of low-income students met or exceeded the ELA standard in 2025, compared to 55.4% district-wide and 38.2% statewide. John Murdy Elementary outperforms its district average for low-income students by 11.4 percentage points in ELA. Other subgroups: Low-Income students (66.1% Math proficient); Asian students (72.9% ELA proficient). The largest proficiency gap is 42.9 percentage points for english learner students. Data source: California Department of Education, CAASPP 2024-25. 292 students tested.
5 of 13 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 28.8pp from grade 3 to grade 5 at this school. District average: +7.0pp.
Showing up, and staying in class
TK/K students miss school at roughly three times the rate of Grades 4–6 students (15.4% vs 3.4%). 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
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.
$246 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), 65% met or exceeded the standard — science is tested in grades 5 and 8 but never enters the Scope Score.
Frequently asked questions
Is John Murdy Elementary a good elementary school?
What are John Murdy Elementary's CAASPP test scores?
How does John Murdy Elementary rank in California?
Is John Murdy Elementary getting better or worse?
What is the attendance and school culture like at John Murdy Elementary?
How does John Murdy Elementary compare to other schools in Garden Grove?
How does John Murdy Elementary serve low-income and underrepresented students?
Your other options
Nearby Elementary Schools
3 within ~3 mi · avg 80
Nearby Middle Schools
3 within ~3 mi · avg 59
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 | 91 | 32% | 25% | 27% | 15% | 57% | +14 |
| Grade 4 | 102 | 45% | 25% | 16% | 14% | 71% | +26 |
| Grade 5 | 84 | 50% | 36% | 10% | 5% | 86% | +38 |
| Grade 6 | 102 | 41% | 33% | 14% | 12% | 75% | +28 |
| Math | Tested | EXC | MET | NEAR | NOT | MET+ | +/CA |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Grade 3 | 91 | 32% | 35% | 19% | 14% | 67% | +21 |
| Grade 4 | 102 | 36% | 34% | 21% | 9% | 71% | +29 |
| Grade 5 | 85 | 48% | 18% | 24% | 11% | 66% | +31 |
| Grade 6 | 102 | 51% | 23% | 16% | 11% | 74% | +39 |
| Science (CAST) | Tested | EXC | MET | NEAR | NOT |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Grade 5/8/11 | 85 | 20% | 45% | 32% | 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 | 292 | 66.8% | +11 | +29 |
| Asian | 303 | 72.9% | −7 | −1 |
| English Learners | 92 | 35.9% | +16 | +25 |
| School | Dist | Scope | EXC | MET+ | Growth | Susp |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| John Murdy Elementary ← | — | 69 | 40.6% | 69.5% | +13.7 | 0.7% |
| Plavan (Urbain H.) Elementary | 2.1 mi | 85 | 57.7% | 81.0% | +8.4 | 0.5% |
| Ethan B. Allen Elementary | 1.3 mi | 80 | 66.4% | 88.5% | −1.0 | 0.6% |
| A. G. Cook Elementary | 1.2 mi | 75 | 57.0% | 80.4% | −12.1 | 0.4% |
| California average | — | 45 | 21.3% | 42.7% | −2.9 | 1.6% |
| Year | Scope | Pctile | Rank | Exc | Met+ | Absent | Susp | Growth |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2019 | 66 | 86 | #747 | 42.7% | 69.0% | 6.2% | 0.6% | -2.7pp |
| 2022 | 59 | 87 | #754 | 43.9% | 68.1% | 13.1% | 0.3% | -8.4pp |
| 2023 | 70 | 92 | #459 | 45.2% | 70.2% | 16.6% | 0.6% | +2.0pp |
| 2024 | 68 | 90 | #557 | 40.9% | 68.2% | 8.0% | 0.2% | +20.6pp |
| 2025 | 69 | 91 | #521 | 40.6% | 69.5% | 7.7% | 0.7% | +13.7pp |
| Group | 2019 | 2025 | Δ |
|---|---|---|---|
| Female | 6.8% | 7.2% | +0.4pp |
| Male | 5.5% | 7.1% | +1.6pp |
| Asian | 5.6% | 5.1% | -0.5pp |
| Filipino | 8.7% | — | — |
| Hispanic/Latino | 9.6% | 20.2% | +10.6pp |
| Two or More Races | 0.0% | 6.5% | +6.5pp |
| Students with Disabilities | 4.0% | 10.6% | +6.6pp |
| English Learners | 8.4% | 6.6% | -1.8pp |
| Socioeconomically Disadvantaged | 6.9% | 8.2% | +1.3pp |
| All Students | 6.1% | 7.1% | +1.0pp |
| Homeless | — | 18.8% | — |
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