Your School Scored Low. Here's What to Do About It.

We built SchoolScope, so we owe you more than a number. In those same results, the California elementary schools in our lowest band, Needs Support, had about 680,000 children in the enrollment records we have; 20 schools had no enrollment record. You can read a low result and find support long before deciding whether to move or pay for private school.

What does a low score measure, and what doesn’t it?

The Scope Score is SchoolScope’s summary of public results from the California Department of Education (CDE). It isn’t an official state rating. For an elementary school, it combines test results, how much a grade group’s scores rose over two years, attendance, suspensions and English learners’ results on the state’s English test, ELPAC (the share who reach its top level). For high schools, graduation and college readiness take the place of the two-year rise; those scores retain the reviewed 2024–25 model. Our methodology lists every input and how much each counts.

The four bands are Strong, Solid, Developing and Needs Support. A school’s band comes from where it places among California schools at its level. That place is a percentile: a school at the 20th percentile scored higher than about 20 of every 100 California elementary schools. Needs Support is the lowest quarter.

Read the band before the exact number. Elementary scores are fairly steady from one year to the next. Even so, half of schools move about 4 points or more in a year. One in ten moves about 10 points or more. Some of that is real change at the school. Some is a new group of children taking the test. The inputs can change, too: the 2024–25 score added English learners’ results on the state’s English test, which the 2023–24 score didn’t include. That earlier formula change doesn’t explain movement between 2024–25 and 2025–26. We can’t tell how much of a particular school’s movement comes from each source. So a 4-point gap between two schools is about what one school moves on its own in a year.

The score describes the school as a whole. It doesn’t measure how much your child is learning, how good any one teacher is, or what your child’s future holds.

Is the school short of money?

You might expect a low-scoring school to have less money. On average, the elementary schools in the 2025–26 Needs Support band reported spending more per student than those in Strong. In CDE’s spending file for 2024–25, the newest we have, they averaged $21,859 per student, and Strong schools averaged $19,490. Those averages cover 1,247 and 1,330 schools with spending records.

The totals can’t say why the gap exists, or whether either amount is enough. They include district costs shared out to schools, and each district decides how to share them (CDE’s spending FAQ). We’d read spending as the start of a question: which services does that money pay for here?

Do students at this school progress more than its score suggests?

Most of the score is about how students did on this year’s test. The band can’t show you how much a grade group’s scores rose over two years. That rise is one of the score’s inputs, but it’s mixed in with the rest. SchoolScope measures that with a grade group’s gain, which we also call cohort growth. We compare a school’s third graders in 2024 with its fifth graders in 2026, using scale scores. A scale score is the number, usually in the 2000s, behind each level label. The state test puts grades 3 through 8 on one ruler, so third- and fifth-grade scores can be compared (Smarter Balanced technical report).

These aren’t exactly the same children, because families move in and out. The gain shows what happened to the group. Why it happened is a question for the school. Scores rise as children get older, so a gain on its own is expected. What matters is how it compares with a typical school’s gain. We only read it when the grade group has at least 40 children.

A low band doesn’t settle whether a school’s grade groups kept pace, so look up yours. In California Department of Education CAASPP results for 2025–26, 1,432 public and charter elementary schools were in SchoolScope’s lowest band, Needs Support. Of those, 1,099 had a grade group of at least 40 children, so we could compare each school’s third graders in 2024 with its fifth graders in 2026. A typical California elementary school’s grade group gained about 76 scale-score points over those two years. By the growth phrases SchoolScope prints, 116 read above typical. Another 102 gained a little more than that average but sit inside the chart’s shaded strip, so they count among the 207 about typical. The other 776 read below typical. So about three in ten sit in or above the shaded strip, and about seven in ten read below typical.

Eagle Ranch Elementary in Adelanto is at the 8th percentile, in Needs Support, and the gain for its grade group of 86 children reads a little above typical. That’s the kind of school we’d ask: what changed between 2024 and 2026, and is it still going on?

California also publishes its own growth measure. It follows the same students from grade to grade in grades 4 through 8. Then it compares each child’s progress with what the state expected. We show it on school pages where CDE has a result. It isn’t part of the Scope Score, and the methodology explains why. When the two growth numbers disagree at your school, that’s a good thing to ask the principal about.

Check any “growth” number you see elsewhere, too. Albion Street Elementary in Los Angeles, a Developing school, shows a gap between its third and fifth graders in 2026. Those were different children tested the same spring, so that gap isn’t growth. Twenty-six fifth graders took the English test. Its two-year grade-group figure covers only 22 children, below our 40-child reading floor, so it stays out of the chart. A growth number follows one grade group over two years, as the chart above does, or the same students, as CDE’s measure does.

Will the score change next year?

A gain looks back over two years. Most parents also want to know what next year’s score will say.

A low band often lasts more than a year, but about one in four schools moved up within one year.

Of the elementary schools in Needs Support in 2024–25 results that were also scored in 2025–26, about three in four were still there a year later. About one in four had moved up at least one band. Those figures can’t forecast your school’s next result.

Each spring, a new set of children takes each grade’s test, and a small school’s results can swing. A drop of a few points sits inside the normal movement described above. Read several years on the school’s page before you decide its score is stuck, or about to jump.

How is our child actually doing?

None of this tells you about your own child. Your child’s teacher and classwork can tell you much more. Ask for a short conversation about the work your child is doing now:

• Does the test result fit what you see in class?
• What’s one skill they need to practice?
• What help can the school give, and when can it start?
• How will we know whether it’s helping?

One more question gives you something to do tonight: “What’s one thing I could practice with them at home this week?” It asks for one skill and one small step.

If your child is doing well, ask what comes next when the work is easy. A low school average doesn’t mean every child needs the same help.

Your child’s own work tells you more about whether they need help than the school’s average does. To read your child’s own CAASPP report, our guide to the 2026 score report walks through each part of it.

What help can the school give, and what’s free?

If the teacher agrees your child needs help, start with what the school already runs.

The school’s own plan

Many schools write a School Plan for Student Achievement, or SPSA. It’s a public plan for the school’s extra help. It often shows how federal money will pay for that help. Schools running a schoolwide Title I program write one. Title I is federal money for schools with many students from low-income families. Schools the state has picked out for extra support use the same planning process. A charter school or a one-school district can use its LCAP instead, if it adds the required Title I details. The LCAP is the yearly plan every district and charter school adopts (CDE).

Ask the office which plan your school uses, or look for it on the school’s website. A plan says what the school intends to run, so ask what is actually running this month. Find out whether there’s reading help, math help, tutoring or a summer program, who teaches it, how often it meets and whether there’s a waiting list.

When attendance is part of it

Chronic absence means missing at least 10% of the days a child is enrolled (CDE). By our arithmetic, that’s about two days a month. Across California elementary schools, lower absence went with higher test results. That pattern across schools doesn’t tell us what would happen if one child’s attendance changed.

Illness, housing, transport and feeling unsafe can all keep a child home. A family facing those doesn’t need blame. Ask the school: “Who helps when a child starts missing school, and what can that person arrange?” A name and a plan tell you more than a policy.

Free help outside school

Your library may offer homework help or learning tools with a library card. Ask what your branch has. Free sites such as Khan Academy can be worth talking over with the teacher. We haven’t checked whether any one app closes a child’s gap.

For a child learning English, ELPAC is the test of English skills. The support is English Language Development, the lessons that teach English itself, so ask about those and any other services.

Seeing the class for yourself

California law gives you a way to see your child’s class. If you ask in writing, school officials must arrange for you to watch the class “in a reasonable timeframe,” following your district’s procedures (Ed. Code § 49091.10). The district’s procedures set how that timing works. Call the office to learn its procedure, then send the request. Bring a few questions:

• What happens in the first month when a child is behind?
• Who gives extra help, and to how many children at once?
• What happens when a student is upset or in a conflict?
• How many teaching jobs are open, or filled by long-term substitutes?
• How will the teacher keep us informed?

A visit can show how adults talk with children and welcome families. It’s one lesson, so weigh it alongside the classwork, the teacher’s answers and the data.

When tutoring actually helps

If the school’s help isn’t enough, you may be weighing paid tutoring. Ask about school support before you pay for tutoring. If outside help still makes sense, choose it around one specific need and a plan to check progress.

A 2024 review of randomized tutoring studies found “consistently substantial positive impacts on learning.” On average, tutoring raised test scores by about 0.29 of a standard deviation. A standard deviation is a measure of how spread out students’ scores are. That’s an average across many programs.

Results varied. Programs had larger effects when teachers or paraprofessionals (school support staff) did the tutoring. They also did better in earlier grades, at least three days a week and during the school day. The working-paper version of the same review found “little evidence of once-weekly tutoring sessions generating large effect sizes.” These patterns come from comparing programs with each other, so treat them as a checklist to ask about rather than a recipe.

We haven’t vetted any paid tutoring service for this guide. These are the questions we’d ask a tutor:

• What skill will you work on first?
• How does that connect to classwork?
• How often will sessions happen?
• What will you show us to check progress?

Tutoring might not be the first step. If absence is the main problem, tutoring won’t stop a child from missing new lessons. If your child is exhausted, or the school itself isn’t working for them, that question comes first.

Should we look at another school?

Sometimes the question is the school itself. Before you look elsewhere, check your zoned school’s grade-group gain in the chart above. If it reads above typical, its grade group gained more than a typical school’s, even though its band is low. It’s an average for the whole grade, so ask the school: “What happens here for a child who arrives two grade levels behind?”

Another school in your district

Under state law, a school district must have an open-enrollment policy for families who live in it (Ed. Code § 35160.5(b)). Two kinds of district are exempt: one with a single school, and one whose schools don’t serve any of the same grades. The policy lets you ask for a different school inside your district. If that school has room, CDE says the district must honor your choice (CDE transfer FAQ). The same law keeps a district’s power to maintain a racial and ethnic balance among its schools, including under a desegregation plan.

When a school gets more requests than it has room for, the district must choose by a “random, unbiased process.” Its policy may first give priority to siblings, to children of staff at that school, or to a child who faces harm or danger in their current school’s area. The district can’t choose on how well a child does in class or in sports. Specialized schools and programs, including gifted programs, may still use entrance rules they apply the same way to everyone. And a child who lives in that school’s area can’t be pushed out to make room.

A request isn’t a promise of a seat, because space runs out. Getting there may be up to you: unless federal law requires it, transport is voluntary for districts, and some don’t provide it. CDE encourages districts to give siblings priority, but sibling rules vary (CDE transfer FAQ). Ask your district for its dates and how it decides.

A higher score alone doesn’t show that a new school will give your child the support they need, so before applying, compare schools at the same level and visit if you can.

Charter schools

Charters are public schools with no tuition. When more families apply than there are seats, a charter generally holds a public lottery. Preferences are set by law and by the school’s charter. Check the school’s own rules and dates. Our charter guide explains the process, including the charters LAUSD runs, where your address can decide how you apply. A charter with a higher score might show a weaker grade-group gain, so check both. Keep a backup place while you wait.

Whichever school you choose, some things no number can show you.

What can no score tell us?

A score can’t tell you whether a teacher will notice your child struggling and adjust that same day.

It can’t show how the school handles a child’s bad day, or whether your child will feel they belong there. A quiet child and a loud child can need different things from the same school. No school data set knows which one you have.

If your child has an Individualized Education Program, or IEP, group test results can’t show how the school delivers it. An IEP is the written plan for a child’s special education services. Ask the school how it delivers the services written into it, and talk with families whose children use similar services, if you can.

Look up your schools