Madera County Independent Academy: The scores are below where anyone wants them. Here's what they don't tell you.
Madera County Independent Academy posts low test scores — and suspensions run below the state rate (1.3% vs 3.7%). 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 | 18 | 2% | 2% | — | 29.3% | 1.3% |
| CA average · Middle School | 43 | 17% | 39% | +1.5 | 18.5% | 3.7% |
Madera County Independent Academy scores 18 of 100 on SchoolScope's Scope Score — the 3rd 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 “2% proficient” and call it done. Madera County Independent Academy deserves a closer read. The school sits in Madera, where four in five 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.
As a charter, Madera County Independent Academy enrolls by application rather than address. That changes how you get in, but it doesn't change the score.
The seven-year arc
Slipped from the 14th to the 3rd percentile since 2019.
This school hasn't fully recovered from the pandemic: 2% meet the standard today, versus 5% in 2019 — a gap worth asking about on a visit.
| Grade | 2019 | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Grade 7 | 8% | — | — | 7% | — |
| Grade 8 | 15% | 0% | 17% | 13% | 4% |
| Grade | 2019 | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Grade 7 | 0% | — | — | 0% | — |
| Grade 8 | 0% | 0% | 0% | 7% | 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
At Madera County Independent Academy in Madera, 4.3% of low-income students met or exceeded the ELA standard in 2025, compared to 10.7% district-wide and 38.2% statewide. Madera County Independent Academy trails its district average for low-income students by 6.4 percentage points in ELA. Other subgroups: Low-Income students (0.0% Math proficient); Hispanic students (4.2% ELA proficient). The largest proficiency gap is 6.0 percentage points for hispanic students. Data source: California Department of Education, CAASPP 2024-25. 23 students tested.
7 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
Grades 7–8 students miss school at roughly one and a half times the rate of Grades 4–6 students (43.2% vs 28.6%). Chronic absence here concentrates in the upper grades.
Where the path goes
Madera County Independent Academy 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.
$2,512 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 61 students, this school is much smaller than the typical California middle school (≈860).
On the state's science test (CAST), 3% met or exceeded the standard — science is tested in grades 5 and 8 but never enters the Scope Score.
Frequently asked questions
Is Madera County Independent Academy a good middle school?
What are Madera County Independent Academy's CAASPP test scores?
How does Madera County Independent Academy rank in California?
What is the attendance and school culture like at Madera County Independent Academy?
How does Madera County Independent Academy compare to other schools in Madera?
How does Madera County Independent Academy serve low-income and underrepresented students?
Your other options
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 | 6 | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Grade 4 | 8 | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Grade 5 | 5 | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Grade 6 | 7 | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Grade 7 | 6 | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Grade 8 | 28 | 4% | 0% | 7% | 89% | 4% | −43 |
| Math | Tested | EXC | MET | NEAR | NOT | MET+ | +/CA |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Grade 3 | 6 | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Grade 4 | 9 | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Grade 5 | 5 | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Grade 6 | 7 | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Grade 7 | 6 | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Grade 8 | 28 | 0% | 0% | 14% | 86% | 0% | −32 |
| Science (CAST) | Tested | EXC | MET | NEAR | NOT |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Grade 5/8/11 | 33 | 0% | 3% | 67% | 30% |
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 | 23 | 4.3% | −6 | −34 |
| Hispanic/Latino | 24 | 4.2% | −8 | −35 |
| School | Dist | Scope | EXC | MET+ | Growth | Susp |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Madera County Independent Academy ← | — | 18 | 1.8% | 1.8% | — | 1.3% |
| Sherman Thomas STEM Academy | 2.7 mi | 91 | 49.5% | 79.0% | +18.3 | 0.6% |
| California average | — | 43 | 16.8% | 39.3% | +1.5 | 3.7% |
| Year | Scope | Pctile | Rank | Exc | Met+ | Absent | Susp | Growth |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2019 | 25 | 14 | #1727 | 1.5% | 5.4% | 50.1% | 0.3% | +2.9pp |
| 2022 | 12 | 1 | #2134 | 0.0% | 0.0% | 46.0% | 0.9% | — |
| 2023 | 21 | 4 | #2093 | 0.0% | 8.3% | 27.7% | 1.3% | — |
| 2024 | 17 | 6 | #2090 | 0.0% | 6.8% | 21.9% | 1.4% | — |
| 2025 | 18 | 3 | #2170 | 1.8% | 1.8% | 29.3% | 1.3% | — |
- — Growth data isn't available — the state needs matched grades across years to compute it.
- — Scored here as a middle school — other grade spans appear in the data appendix.
- — Low-income students here trail the state average for their group by 34 points in ELA — worth asking how the school is closing that gap.
| Group | 2019 | 2025 | Δ |
|---|---|---|---|
| Female | 38.0% | 30.2% | -7.8pp |
| Male | 70.7% | 40.0% | -30.7pp |
| Filipino | 57.1% | — | — |
| Hispanic/Latino | 54.7% | 38.9% | -15.8pp |
| English Learners | 38.9% | 15.4% | -23.5pp |
| Socioeconomically Disadvantaged | 53.5% | 35.1% | -18.4pp |
| All Students | 52.7% | 34.9% | -17.8pp |
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