Nellie N. Coffman Middle: No single number tells this school's story. Here's the honest picture.
Nellie N. Coffman posts 25% meeting the standard and 6.8% exceeding it, against 39% and 16.8% statewide. The gaps and the bright spots below are the real read.
| Scope | % Exceeded | % Met+ | Growth | Absence | Suspension | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| This school | 31 | 7% | 25% | +5.3 | 30.9% | 7.1% |
| CA average · Middle School | 43 | 17% | 39% | +1.5 | 18.5% | 3.7% |
Nellie N. Coffman Middle scores 31 of 100 on SchoolScope's Scope Score — the 27th 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 →
📈 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 “25% proficient” and call it done. Nellie N. Coffman deserves a closer read. The school sits in Cathedral City, where nearly all students qualify for free or reduced lunch — and reading the numbers without that context misreads the school.
The seven-year arc
Climbed from the 7th to the 27th percentile since 2019 — past roughly 200 middle schools.
Proficiency here is back to its pre-pandemic level — 25% meet the standard, about where the school stood in 2019.
| Grade | 2019 | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Grade 6 | 36% | 31% | 30% | 24% | 32% |
| Grade 7 | 35% | 38% | 26% | 30% | 29% |
| Grade 8 | 28% | 28% | 36% | 31% | 41% |
| Grade | 2019 | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Grade 6 | 29% | 18% | 19% | 13% | 18% |
| Grade 7 | 24% | 14% | 17% | 17% | 10% |
| Grade 8 | 12% | 13% | 15% | 16% | 19% |
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 3.5pp across grades; the floor rises 8.7pp. The state average falls 0.5pp 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 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 Nellie N. Coffman Middle in Cathedral City, 33.7% of low-income students met or exceeded the ELA standard in 2025, compared to 35.8% district-wide and 38.2% statewide. Nellie N. Coffman Middle trails its district average for low-income students by 2.0 percentage points in ELA. Other subgroups: Low-Income students (15.6% Math proficient); Hispanic students (32.7% ELA proficient). The largest proficiency gap is 31.2 percentage points for disabilities students. Data source: California Department of Education, CAASPP 2024-25. 842 students tested.
7 of 16 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 8.0pp from grade 6 to grade 8 at this school. District average: +3.5pp.
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
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.
$397 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), 20% met or exceeded the standard — science is tested in grades 5 and 8 but never enters the Scope Score.
Frequently asked questions
Is Nellie N. Coffman Middle a good middle school?
What are Nellie N. Coffman Middle's CAASPP test scores?
How does Nellie N. Coffman Middle rank in California?
Is Nellie N. Coffman Middle getting better or worse?
What is the attendance and school culture like at Nellie N. Coffman Middle?
How does Nellie N. Coffman Middle compare to other schools in Cathedral City?
How does Nellie N. Coffman Middle 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 6 | 294 | 7% | 25% | 27% | 40% | 32% | −14 |
| Grade 7 | 278 | 4% | 24% | 26% | 45% | 29% | −19 |
| Grade 8 | 290 | 11% | 30% | 24% | 34% | 41% | −5 |
| Math | Tested | EXC | MET | NEAR | NOT | MET+ | +/CA |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Grade 6 | 297 | 6% | 11% | 25% | 58% | 18% | −17 |
| Grade 7 | 278 | 4% | 7% | 30% | 60% | 10% | −24 |
| Grade 8 | 290 | 8% | 11% | 21% | 59% | 19% | −13 |
| Science (CAST) | Tested | EXC | MET | NEAR | NOT |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Grade 5/8/11 | 289 | 5% | 15% | 64% | 17% |
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 | 842 | 33.7% | −2 | −5 |
| Hispanic/Latino | 787 | 32.7% | −1 | −6 |
| English Learners | 266 | 4.1% | −5 | −6 |
| School | Dist | Scope | EXC | MET+ | Growth | Susp |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nellie N. Coffman Middle ← | — | 31 | 6.8% | 24.9% | +5.3 | 7.1% |
| James Workman Middle | 2.5 mi | 38 | 13.3% | 36.2% | +0.8 | 8.5% |
| California average | — | 43 | 16.8% | 39.3% | +1.5 | 3.7% |
| Year | Scope | Pctile | Rank | Exc | Met+ | Absent | Susp | Growth |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2019 | 21 | 7 | #1862 | 8.0% | 27.4% | 17.1% | 12.6% | -12.6pp |
| 2022 | 23 | 15 | #1847 | 5.7% | 23.6% | 26.4% | 9.0% | -4.6pp |
| 2023 | 31 | 24 | #1660 | 6.6% | 23.7% | 35.7% | 12.0% | +0.9pp |
| 2024 | 24 | 17 | #1838 | 6.0% | 21.8% | 35.2% | 9.1% | +5.0pp |
| 2025 | 31 | 27 | #1638 | 6.8% | 24.9% | 30.9% | 7.1% | +5.3pp |
| Group | 2019 | 2025 | Δ |
|---|---|---|---|
| Female | 17.5% | 30.3% | +12.8pp |
| Male | 16.6% | 31.9% | +15.3pp |
| Black/African American | 21.7% | 37.5% | +15.8pp |
| Hispanic/Latino | 16.2% | 30.9% | +14.7pp |
| Two or More Races | 35.3% | — | — |
| Students with Disabilities | 24.8% | 40.7% | +15.9pp |
| English Learners | 17.2% | 28.5% | +11.3pp |
| Foster Youth | 14.3% | 55.0% | +40.7pp |
| Homeless | 30.5% | 28.6% | -1.9pp |
| Socioeconomically Disadvantaged | 17.4% | 31.1% | +13.7pp |
| All Students | 17.1% | 31.1% | +14.0pp |
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