Summary:
Perris has four middle schools—Lakeside Middle, Tomas Rivera Middle, Pinacate Middle, and Val Verde Student Success Academy—serving grades 6–10; the first two traditional middle schools serve grades 7–8, while Rivera serves grades 6–8. Enrollment ranges from 27 at the Academy to 1,076 at Lakeside. The Academy’s 2025–26 test results are state-suppressed. Most importantly, all three schools with reportable results were below statewide proficiency in ELA, math, and science, including the local leader, Lakeside.
Lakeside stands out at the top, with 2025–26 proficiency of 40% in ELA, 24% in math, and 25% in science; Pinacate is lowest overall, at 18%, 9%, and 12%, respectively. Lakeside’s scores are 18 points higher in ELA, 13 points higher in math, and 11 points higher in science than the average of Rivera and Pinacate. Rivera generally falls between them, though grade-level results reveal an exception: Pinacate’s seventh-grade math rate, 13%, is above Rivera’s 11%, while Rivera leads Pinacate in eighth-grade math, 11% to 7%.
Recent changes are mixed: across the three reporting schools, average science proficiency rose 6 points from 2024–25 to 2025–26, while ELA fell 2 points and math rose 1. SchoolDigger’s 2025–26 rankings also place Lakeside ahead at the 37th percentile, compared with the 11th for Rivera and 5th for Pinacate. Attendance adds another distinction: chronic absenteeism was 16% at Lakeside and 17% at Rivera, versus 34% at Pinacate and 76% at the Academy. Among the three larger schools, Lakeside’s student-teacher ratio is 22.2 and its free/reduced lunch eligible rate was 86% in sy 2024–25; Rivera and Pinacate had ratios of 22.8 and 23.9, and each had a 95% free/reduced lunch eligible rate that year. These measures offer context, not explanations for achievement differences.
Thank you for your feedback!