Best Middle Schools in Merced, CA

Merced, California, has five middle schools: Weaver Middle serves grades 6–8, while the other four serve grades 7–8. In 2025–2026, the five-school average was below California’s in every tested subject: 16 percentage points in English Language Arts (ELA), 20 in math, and 20 in science. The gaps widened from the prior year in all three subjects, making the area-wide shortfall the most important finding for families comparing these schools.

Different schools lead in different subjects. Herbert H. Cruickshank Middle had the highest all-grades ELA proficiency at 41%, 9 points above the other four schools’ average; Tenaya Middle was lowest at 27%. In math, Weaver led at 26%, 9 points above the other schools’ average, while Tenaya was lowest at 12%. Herbert Hoover Middle led science at 19%; Rudolph Rivera Middle was lowest at 14%. Grade-level results add detail: Cruickshank’s grade 8 ELA result was 48%, just 1 point below the state, and Weaver led math in both grades 7 and 8.

Results over time were mixed by school, but the group average fell in every subject as state results rose. Only Weaver and Hoover improved in ELA; no school improved in math, while Hoover and Tenaya improved in science. SchoolDigger’s ranking percentiles also fell at every school from 2023–2024 to 2025–2026: for example, Rivera went from 34 to 14, while Weaver went from 34 to 30. School context varies too: the reported free/reduced lunch eligible measure for school year 2024–2025 ranged from 59% at Cruickshank to 94% at Weaver, and student-teacher ratios ranged from 22.1 at Weaver to 30.1 at Cruickshank. These are descriptive differences, not explanations of achievement; all-grades comparisons also combine Weaver’s grades 6–8 with the other schools’ grades 7–8.