Kern County Special Education: The scores are below where anyone wants them. Here's what they don't tell you.
Kern County Special Education posts low test scores — and test scores are one lens among several. 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 | 14 | 0% | 0% | — | 33.8% | 3.3% |
| CA average · Middle School | 43 | 17% | 39% | +1.5 | 18.5% | 3.7% |
Kern County Special Education scores 14 of 100 on SchoolScope's Scope Score — the 1st 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 →
🌱 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 “0% proficient” and call it done. Kern County Special Education deserves a closer read. The school sits in Bakersfield, where two-thirds of 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 1st percentile since 2019.
This school hasn't fully recovered from the pandemic: 0% meet the standard today, versus 6% in 2019 — a gap worth asking about on a visit.
| Grade | 2019 | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Grade 4 | 19% | — | 0% | — | — |
| Grade 5 | 0% | 8% | — | — | — |
| Grade 6 | — | — | 13% | — | 0% |
| Grade 7 | 14% | 7% | 14% | — | — |
| Grade 8 | 4% | 11% | — | 9% | — |
| Grade | 2019 | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Grade 4 | 33% | — | 0% | — | — |
| Grade 5 | 0% | 0% | — | — | — |
| Grade 6 | — | — | 0% | — | 0% |
| Grade 7 | 7% | 7% | 7% | 0% | — |
| Grade 8 | 0% | 0% | — | — | — |
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 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
9 of 12 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
Where the path goes
Kern County Special Education serves grades K-12 — students can complete their entire K-12 education here, with no school-to-school transitions.
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.
$232 per student arrives as federal Title funding — a measure of concentrated need, not school quality.
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 387 students, this school is much smaller than the typical California middle school (≈860).
On the state's science test (CAST), 10% met or exceeded the standard — science is tested in grades 5 and 8 but never enters the Scope Score.
Frequently asked questions
Is Kern County Special Education a good middle school?
What are Kern County Special Education's CAASPP test scores?
How does Kern County Special Education rank in California?
What is the attendance and school culture like at Kern County Special Education?
How does Kern County Special Education compare to other schools in Bakersfield?
Your other options
Nearby Middle Schools
3 within ~3 mi · avg 23
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 | 4 | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Grade 4 | 7 | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Grade 5 | 10 | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Grade 6 | 12 | 0% | 0% | 0% | 100% | 0% | −47 |
| Grade 7 | 9 | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Grade 8 | 9 | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Math | Tested | EXC | MET | NEAR | NOT | MET+ | +/CA |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Grade 3 | 4 | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Grade 4 | 7 | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Grade 5 | 10 | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Grade 6 | 11 | 0% | 0% | 0% | 100% | 0% | −35 |
| Grade 7 | 10 | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Grade 8 | 9 | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Science (CAST) | Tested | EXC | MET | NEAR | NOT |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Grade 5/8/11 | 21 | 0% | 10% | 14% | 76% |
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Kern County Special Education ← | — | 14 | 0.0% | 0.0% | — | 3.3% |
| Curran Middle | 2.6 mi | 25 | 4.3% | 17.5% | +0.1 | 7.0% |
| Washington Middle | 2.6 mi | 23 | 2.9% | 12.8% | −4.1 | 4.9% |
| Emerson Middle | 1 mi | 22 | 3.2% | 15.7% | −3.3 | 9.3% |
| California average | — | 43 | 16.8% | 39.3% | +1.5 | 3.7% |
| Year | Scope | Pctile | Rank | Exc | Met+ | Absent | Susp | Growth |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2019 | 10 | 1 | #1979 | 0.0% | 6.3% | 41.6% | 5.0% | — |
| 2022 | 10 | 1 | #2151 | 0.0% | 6.2% | 78.8% | 3.6% | — |
| 2023 | 16 | 1 | #2154 | 0.0% | 8.7% | 61.5% | 5.1% | — |
| 2024 | 13 | 2 | #2164 | 0.0% | 4.5% | 36.4% | 4.8% | — |
| 2025 | 14 | 1 | #2213 | 0.0% | 0.0% | 33.8% | 3.3% | — |
- — 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 a middle school — other grade spans appear in the data appendix.
| Group | 2019 | 2025 | Δ |
|---|---|---|---|
| Female | 59.0% | 61.0% | +2.0pp |
| Male | 38.6% | 50.6% | +12.0pp |
| Black/African American | 25.0% | 42.3% | +17.3pp |
| Hispanic/Latino | 49.3% | 57.5% | +8.2pp |
| Students with Disabilities | 44.2% | 53.5% | +9.3pp |
| English Learners | 54.4% | 57.6% | +3.2pp |
| Foster Youth | 45.5% | 44.0% | -1.5pp |
| Socioeconomically Disadvantaged | 46.6% | 56.3% | +9.7pp |
| All Students | 44.2% | 53.5% | +9.3pp |
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