Vista Colorado Elementary: No single number tells this school's story. Here's the honest picture.
Vista Colorado posts 25% meeting the standard and 7.6% exceeding it, against 43% and 21.3% statewide. The gaps and the bright spots below are the real read.
| Scope | % Exceeded | % Met+ | Growth | Absence | Suspension | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| This school | 37 | 8% | 25% | +6.8 | 18.6% | 0.4% |
| CA average · Elementary School | 45 | 21% | 43% | -2.9 | 17.9% | 1.6% |
Vista Colorado Elementary scores 37 of 100 on SchoolScope's Scope Score — the 36th 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 →
📈 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. Vista Colorado deserves a closer read. The school sits in Needles, where four in five students qualify for free or reduced lunch — and reading the numbers without that context misreads the school.
The seven-year arc
Has stayed near the 36th percentile since 2019.
This school hasn't fully recovered from the pandemic: 25% meet the standard today, versus 31% in 2019 — a gap worth asking about on a visit.
| Grade | 2019 | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Grade 3 | 28% | 23% | 21% | 12% | 16% |
| Grade 4 | 20% | 31% | 23% | 30% | 35% |
| Grade 5 | 39% | 39% | 26% | 5% | 39% |
| Grade | 2019 | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Grade 3 | 38% | 28% | 37% | 24% | 24% |
| Grade 4 | 20% | 16% | 23% | 30% | 22% |
| Grade 5 | 39% | 30% | 19% | 7% | 14% |
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 9.3pp across grades; the floor rises 23.4pp. 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.
The 5 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 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 Vista Colorado Elementary in Needles, 28.9% of low-income students met or exceeded the ELA standard in 2025, compared to 28.3% district-wide and 38.2% statewide. Vista Colorado Elementary outperforms its district average for low-income students by 0.6 percentage points in ELA. Other subgroups: Low-Income students (16.3% Math proficient); White students (37.2% ELA proficient). The largest proficiency gap is 17.8 percentage points for disabilities students. Data source: California Department of Education, CAASPP 2024-25. 135 students tested.
5 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.
Low-income student ELA proficiency rises by 24.8pp from grade 3 to grade 5 at this school. District average: +19.6pp.
Showing up, and staying in class
TK/K students miss school at roughly one and a half times the rate of Grades 4–6 students (26.3% vs 15.7%). 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.
Estimated path based on proximity within the same district. Contact your school district for official feeder information.
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.
$898 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), 20% met or exceeded the standard — science is tested in grades 5 and 8 but never enters the Scope Score.
Frequently asked questions
Is Vista Colorado Elementary a good elementary school?
What are Vista Colorado Elementary's CAASPP test scores?
How does Vista Colorado Elementary rank in California?
Is Vista Colorado Elementary getting better or worse?
What is the attendance and school culture like at Vista Colorado Elementary?
How does Vista Colorado Elementary compare to other schools in Needles?
How does Vista Colorado Elementary 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 | 50 | 2% | 14% | 32% | 52% | 16% | −27 |
| Grade 4 | 49 | 14% | 20% | 24% | 41% | 35% | −10 |
| Grade 5 | 71 | 11% | 28% | 24% | 37% | 39% | −8 |
| Math | Tested | EXC | MET | NEAR | NOT | MET+ | +/CA |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Grade 3 | 50 | 4% | 20% | 18% | 58% | 24% | −22 |
| Grade 4 | 49 | 8% | 14% | 41% | 37% | 22% | −19 |
| Grade 5 | 71 | 6% | 8% | 37% | 49% | 14% | −21 |
| Science (CAST) | Tested | EXC | MET | NEAR | NOT |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Grade 5/8/11 | 71 | 8% | 11% | 61% | 20% |
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 | 135 | 28.9% | +1 | −9 |
| White | 86 | 37.2% | +2 | −25 |
| Hispanic/Latino | 63 | 31.7% | −0 | −7 |
| School | Dist | Scope | EXC | MET+ | Growth | Susp |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Vista Colorado Elementary ← | — | 37 | 7.6% | 25.1% | +6.8 | 0.4% |
| California average | — | 45 | 21.3% | 42.7% | −2.9 | 1.6% |
| Year | Scope | Pctile | Rank | Exc | Met+ | Absent | Susp | Growth |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2019 | 35 | 31 | #3793 | 10.0% | 30.8% | 23.6% | 2.9% | +6.7pp |
| 2022 | 34 | 44 | #3198 | 5.5% | 27.8% | 40.7% | 1.5% | +8.9pp |
| 2023 | 29 | 24 | #4328 | 5.7% | 24.8% | 33.5% | 0.0% | -6.5pp |
| 2024 | 19 | 3 | #5558 | 5.0% | 18.2% | 24.2% | 0.4% | -12.1pp |
| 2025 | 37 | 36 | #3701 | 7.6% | 25.1% | 18.6% | 0.4% | +6.8pp |
| Group | 2019 | 2025 | Δ |
|---|---|---|---|
| Female | 22.6% | 18.0% | -4.6pp |
| Male | 25.2% | 19.4% | -5.8pp |
| Black/African American | 22.7% | 23.8% | +1.1pp |
| Hispanic/Latino | 18.7% | 18.8% | +0.1pp |
| American Indian/Alaska Native | 30.4% | 18.2% | -12.2pp |
| Two or More Races | 11.1% | 31.3% | +20.2pp |
| Students with Disabilities | 40.9% | 27.6% | -13.3pp |
| Homeless | 28.9% | 31.6% | +2.7pp |
| Socioeconomically Disadvantaged | 28.0% | 21.3% | -6.7pp |
| All Students | 23.9% | 18.7% | -5.2pp |
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