Best Public Schools in Hanford, CA

The supplied list for Hanford, California, contains 28 school records, though the data summary counts 29. Schools range from elementary through high school and include alternative and special-purpose settings; enrollment runs from 6 at J. C. Montgomery to 1,498 at Hanford High. Because schools serve different grades and purposes, all-grades results are broad context, not a like-for-like ranking. The most important finding is how widely reported proficiency varies across schools: the full range is 70 percentage points in ELA, 64 in math, and 43 in science.

Kings River-Hardwick Elementary led reported ELA and math, with 70% and 64% proficiency—21 and 26 points above the state, respectively. Jefferson Academy led science at 50%, 14 points above the state, and also reported 60% ELA and 53% math. Among conventional high schools, Sierra Pacific High led all three subjects, at 67% ELA, 39% math, and 38% science. At the lower end, Lakeside Elementary reported 22% ELA, 13% math, and 14% science; Hanford Elementary Community Day reported 0% in ELA and math with just 12 students enrolled, while Mid Valley Alternative Charter had the lowest reported science result, 6%.

The three conventional high schools moved closer to state results overall from 2024–25 to 2025–26, but math remains the clearest shared challenge: their average was 30% in math, 9 points below the state, compared with a 17-point deficit the prior year. Their ELA average was 57%, 7 points above state, and their science average was 33%, 3 points below. SchoolDigger’s percentile history also shows different trajectories: Kings River-Hardwick rose from the 78th to the 89th percentile from 2023–24 to 2025–26, while Lakeside fell from the 13th to the 4th; SchoolDigger gives them 4 stars and 0 stars, respectively. Strong results coexist with different reported student-teacher ratios: 23.1 at Kings River-Hardwick and 27.8 at Jefferson. The schools’ 2024–25 free/reduced lunch eligible figures were 30% at Kings River-Hardwick, 48% at Jefferson, 59% at Sierra Pacific, and 78% at Hanford West High; these are contextual observations, not explanations of results.