Melinda Heights Elementary: Most kids here clear the bar, year after year. The question is what happens after that.
Melinda Heights posts 58% meeting the standard, and 29.2% going well past it. Most kids here keep up. Fewer get pushed further. Ask the school what it does for a child who already finds the work easy.
| Scope | % Exceeded | % Met+ | Growth | Absence | Suspension | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| This school | 59 | 29% | 58% | +3.5 | 10.1% | 0.8% |
| CA average · Elementary School | 45 | 21% | 43% | -2.9 | 17.9% | 1.6% |
Melinda Heights Elementary scores 59 of 100 on SchoolScope's Scope Score — the 80th 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 →
💪 Strong All-Around — Ask about what we don't score — class size, electives, the feel of a classroom — strong numbers everywhere on paper don't mean every classroom feels the same.
Most rating sites would stop at “58% proficient” and call it done. Melinda Heights deserves a closer read. The school sits in Rancho Santa Margarita, where one in four students qualify for free or reduced lunch — and reading the numbers without that context misreads the school.
The seven-year arc
Has held the 80th-percentile line every tested year since 2019.
This school hasn't fully recovered from the pandemic: 58% meet the standard today, versus 67% in 2019 — a gap worth asking about on a visit.
| Grade | 2019 | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Grade 3 | 65% | 58% | 49% | 48% | 54% |
| Grade 4 | 70% | 74% | 65% | 61% | 49% |
| Grade 5 | 79% | 64% | 67% | 59% | 65% |
| Grade 6 | 74% | 74% | 69% | 75% | 64% |
| Grade | 2019 | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Grade 3 | 61% | 61% | 61% | 58% | 63% |
| Grade 4 | 68% | 76% | 63% | 69% | 58% |
| Grade 5 | 59% | 60% | 55% | 50% | 58% |
| Grade 6 | 76% | 60% | 63% | 64% | 60% |
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 falls 1.5pp across grades; the floor rises 11.3pp. The state average rises 4.5pp over the same span. A school visit and conversation with teachers will tell you more than this number.
The 6 things our score weighs
Ask how the school challenges kids who clear the standard early. The gap between meeting and exceeding is where pacing shows.
- 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 Melinda Heights Elementary in Rancho Santa Margarita, 42.4% of low-income students met or exceeded the ELA standard in 2025, compared to 42.7% district-wide and 38.2% statewide. Melinda Heights Elementary trails its district average for low-income students by 0.4 percentage points in ELA. Other subgroups: Low-Income students (44.4% Math proficient); White students (60.3% ELA proficient). The largest proficiency gap is 34.5 percentage points for disabilities students. Data source: California Department of Education, CAASPP 2024-25. 170 students tested.
7 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 2.5pp from grade 3 to grade 5 at this school. District average: +3.1pp.
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
$2 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
At 950 students, this school is well above the typical California elementary school (≈480).
On the state's science test (CAST), 51% met or exceeded the standard — science is tested in grades 5 and 8 but never enters the Scope Score.
Frequently asked questions
Is Melinda Heights Elementary a good elementary school?
What are Melinda Heights Elementary's CAASPP test scores?
How does Melinda Heights Elementary rank in California?
Is Melinda Heights Elementary getting better or worse?
What is the attendance and school culture like at Melinda Heights Elementary?
How does Melinda Heights Elementary compare to other schools in Rancho Santa Margarita?
How does Melinda Heights Elementary serve low-income and underrepresented students?
Your other options
Nearby Elementary Schools
3 within ~3 mi · avg 67
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 | 155 | 30% | 24% | 20% | 26% | 54% | +11 |
| Grade 4 | 144 | 26% | 23% | 27% | 24% | 49% | +4 |
| Grade 5 | 139 | 29% | 37% | 19% | 16% | 65% | +18 |
| Grade 6 | 162 | 27% | 36% | 27% | 10% | 64% | +17 |
| Math | Tested | EXC | MET | NEAR | NOT | MET+ | +/CA |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Grade 3 | 155 | 28% | 35% | 20% | 17% | 63% | +17 |
| Grade 4 | 144 | 30% | 28% | 30% | 13% | 58% | +16 |
| Grade 5 | 137 | 33% | 26% | 28% | 14% | 58% | +23 |
| Grade 6 | 162 | 35% | 26% | 23% | 17% | 60% | +25 |
| Science (CAST) | Tested | EXC | MET | NEAR | NOT |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Grade 5/8/11 | 140 | 19% | 33% | 46% | 3% |
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 | 170 | 42.4% | −0 | +4 |
| White | 302 | 60.3% | −9 | −2 |
| Hispanic/Latino | 143 | 43.4% | +2 | +5 |
| School | Dist | Scope | EXC | MET+ | Growth | Susp |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Melinda Heights Elementary ← | — | 59 | 29.2% | 57.8% | +3.5 | 0.8% |
| Portola Hills Elementary | 2 mi | 78 | 49.4% | 77.8% | +7.4 | 0.3% |
| Arroyo Vista Elementary | 2.2 mi | 66 | 38.4% | 69.8% | −1.0 | 1.3% |
| Tijeras Creek Elementary | 2.1 mi | 58 | 45.2% | 70.7% | −13.6 | 0.7% |
| California average | — | 45 | 21.3% | 42.7% | −2.9 | 1.6% |
| Year | Scope | Pctile | Rank | Exc | Met+ | Absent | Susp | Growth |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2019 | 67 | 88 | #685 | 36.8% | 67.1% | 4.3% | 0.3% | +5.8pp |
| 2022 | 59 | 87 | #759 | 33.2% | 65.4% | 14.8% | 0.5% | +2.3pp |
| 2023 | 58 | 83 | #986 | 31.0% | 59.9% | 13.0% | 0.6% | +5.8pp |
| 2024 | 54 | 76 | #1391 | 27.8% | 57.7% | 10.0% | 0.8% | +1.8pp |
| 2025 | 59 | 80 | #1130 | 29.2% | 57.8% | 10.1% | 0.8% | +3.5pp |
| Group | 2019 | 2025 | Δ |
|---|---|---|---|
| Female | 3.0% | 8.3% | +5.3pp |
| Male | 5.5% | 11.2% | +5.7pp |
| Asian | 3.7% | 9.7% | +6.0pp |
| Filipino | 6.3% | — | — |
| White | 0.0% | 3.0% | +3.0pp |
| Hispanic/Latino | 4.8% | 12.1% | +7.3pp |
| Two or More Races | 3.0% | 7.9% | +4.9pp |
| Students with Disabilities | 9.5% | 14.6% | +5.1pp |
| English Learners | 7.3% | 13.6% | +6.3pp |
| Socioeconomically Disadvantaged | 11.0% | 16.3% | +5.3pp |
| All Students | 4.2% | 9.8% | +5.6pp |
| Homeless | — | 4.5% | — |
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