Western Center Academy: Most kids here clear the bar, year after year. The question is what happens after that.
Western Center Academy posts 69% meeting the standard, and 32.9% 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 | 61 | 33% | 69% | +2.7 | 5.3% | 0.2% |
| CA average · Middle School | 43 | 17% | 39% | +1.5 | 18.5% | 3.7% |
Western Center Academy scores 61 of 100 on SchoolScope's Scope Score — the 87th 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 →
💪 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 “69% proficient” and call it done. Western Center Academy deserves a closer read. The school sits in Hemet, where more than half of students qualify for free or reduced lunch — and reading the numbers without that context misreads the school.
Western Center Academy's low-income kids hit 83.3% proficiency in ELA — a number the same group reaches at 38.2% statewide. If you're trying to read past zip-code-driven test scores, that's the signal worth weighing.
As a charter, Western Center 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 97th to the 87th percentile since 2019.
This school hasn't fully recovered from the pandemic: 69% meet the standard today, versus 83% in 2019 — a gap worth asking about on a visit.
| Grade | 2019 | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Grade 6 | 85% | 77% | 86% | 90% | 76% |
| Grade 7 | 88% | 82% | 90% | 90% | 89% |
| Grade 8 | 96% | 85% | 85% | 85% | 87% |
| Grade 11 | 96% | 88% | 95% | 97% | 95% |
| Grade | 2019 | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Grade 6 | 78% | 49% | 63% | 55% | 57% |
| Grade 7 | 74% | 57% | 58% | 56% | 53% |
| Grade 8 | 73% | 56% | 59% | 52% | 52% |
| Grade 11 | 82% | 64% | 63% | 67% | 67% |
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 17.3pp across grades; the floor rises 11.3pp. 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.
Western Center Academy's most underrated number
83.3% of low-income students met the ELA standard — versus 38.2% for the same group statewide. That's the strongest kind of signal a school can post: it holds across income lines.
The 5 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 extra support — tutoring, counseling, small groups — reaches kids across income lines, not just the students already ahead.
- 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 Western Center Academy in Hemet, 83.3% of low-income students met or exceeded the ELA standard in 2025, compared to 31.9% district-wide and 38.2% statewide. Western Center Academy outperforms its district average for low-income students by 51.3 percentage points in ELA. Other subgroups: Low-Income students (48.3% Math proficient); Hispanic students (81.1% ELA proficient). The largest proficiency gap is 3.0 percentage points for hispanic students. Data source: California Department of Education, CAASPP 2024-25. 299 students tested.
8 of 15 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 10.0pp from grade 6 to grade 8 at this school. District average: +6.1pp.
Showing up, and staying in class
Grades 7–8 students miss school at roughly three times the rate of Grades 4–6 students (6.6% vs 0.8%). Chronic absence here concentrates in the upper grades.
Where the path goes
Western Center Academy serves grades 6-12 — students can complete middle and high school here, without a separate middle-to-high transition.
The people teaching here
Pay is set by the district, not the school.
What gets spent here
$68 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), 74% met or exceeded the standard — science is tested in grades 5 and 8 but never enters the Scope Score.
Frequently asked questions
Is Western Center Academy a good middle school?
What are Western Center Academy's CAASPP test scores?
How does Western Center Academy rank in California?
Is Western Center Academy getting better or worse?
What is the attendance and school culture like at Western Center Academy?
How does Western Center Academy compare to other schools in Hemet?
How does Western Center Academy serve low-income and underrepresented students?
Your other options
Nearby Middle Schools
2 within ~3 mi · avg 28
Nearby Elementary Schools
3 within ~3 mi · avg 34
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 6 | 128 | 30% | 46% | 18% | 6% | 76% | +29 |
| Grade 7 | 133 | 36% | 53% | 10% | 2% | 89% | +41 |
| Grade 8 | 132 | 47% | 40% | 11% | 2% | 87% | +41 |
| Grade 11 | 84 | 63% | 32% | 2% | 2% | 95% | +48 |
| Math | Tested | EXC | MET | NEAR | NOT | MET+ | +/CA |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Grade 6 | 127 | 24% | 33% | 31% | 12% | 57% | +22 |
| Grade 7 | 133 | 26% | 27% | 32% | 15% | 53% | +19 |
| Grade 8 | 132 | 34% | 17% | 27% | 21% | 52% | +19 |
| Grade 11 | 84 | 30% | 37% | 20% | 13% | 67% | +43 |
| Science (CAST) | Tested | EXC | MET | NEAR | NOT |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Grade 5/8/11 | 225 | 28% | 47% | 25% | 0% |
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 | 299 | 83.3% | +51 | +45 |
| Hispanic/Latino | 233 | 81.1% | +49 | +42 |
| White | 135 | 88.9% | +45 | +27 |
| School | Dist | Scope | EXC | MET+ | Growth | Susp |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Western Center Academy ← | — | 61 | 32.9% | 69.0% | +2.7 | 0.2% |
| Diamond Valley Middle | 1.7 mi | 30 | 4.0% | 19.4% | +6.6 | 8.6% |
| Acacia Middle | 3.2 mi | 26 | 4.1% | 13.7% | +3.3 | 7.5% |
| California average | — | 43 | 16.8% | 39.3% | +1.5 | 3.7% |
| Year | Scope | Pctile | Rank | Exc | Met+ | Absent | Susp | Growth |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2019 | 75 | 97 | #60 | 44.5% | 82.5% | 1.7% | 0.0% | +3.2pp |
| 2022 | 64 | 91 | #192 | 31.0% | 67.8% | 17.4% | 1.2% | +6.9pp |
| 2023 | 68 | 92 | #185 | 34.6% | 73.6% | 6.0% | 2.0% | -2.7pp |
| 2024 | 65 | 91 | #206 | 30.9% | 71.3% | 5.7% | 0.5% | -3.6pp |
| 2025 | 61 | 87 | #289 | 32.9% | 69.0% | 5.3% | 0.2% | +2.7pp |
- — Scored here as a middle school — other grade spans appear in the data appendix.
| Group | 2019 | 2025 | Δ |
|---|---|---|---|
| Female | 2.1% | 5.8% | +3.7pp |
| Male | 1.0% | 3.8% | +2.8pp |
| Asian | 0.0% | 0.0% | +0.0pp |
| Black/African American | 4.5% | 2.2% | -2.3pp |
| White | 0.0% | 6.9% | +6.9pp |
| Hispanic/Latino | 1.1% | 4.1% | +3.0pp |
| Two or More Races | 5.6% | 7.3% | +1.7pp |
| Students with Disabilities | 0.0% | 0.0% | +0.0pp |
| English Learners | 0.0% | 0.0% | +0.0pp |
| Socioeconomically Disadvantaged | 0.9% | 6.4% | +5.5pp |
| All Students | 1.6% | 4.8% | +3.2pp |
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