Summary:
Spring Valley has nine elementary schools in the La Mesa–Spring Valley district: eight serve kindergarten through fifth grade, and Bancroft Elementary serves kindergarten through eighth grade. In 2025–26, the schools’ unweighted average proficiency rates were 37% in English language arts (ELA), 28% in mathematics and 23% in science, compared with state rates of 49%, 38% and 36%. The average shortfalls were 12, 10 and 13 percentage points, respectively. The clearest overall takeaway is that all three local averages were below the state, with mathematics the closest.
Sweetwater Springs Elementary led in ELA at 49% and math at 38%, essentially matching the state in both subjects; its results were 14 and 11 points above the other eight schools’ averages. Highlands Elementary led in science at 33%, 3 points below the state and 11 above the other schools’ average. At the lower end, Kempton Street Literacy Academy had the lowest ELA result, 25%, and science result, 11%—14 and 13 points below the other schools’ averages. Bancroft had the lowest math result at 20%, 10 points below the other schools’ average. No school led in all three subjects.
Average results improved from 2024–25 to 2025–26 by 1 point in ELA, 3 in math and 3 in science. The area moved closer to the state in ELA and math, while the science gap widened slightly. SchoolDigger’s 2025–26 statewide rankings also vary: Sweetwater Springs placed at the 54th percentile and Highlands at the 50th, while Kempton was at the 11th. School characteristics do not follow a simple pattern: Loma Elementary had the second-highest ELA result, 47%, despite a 28.6 student-teacher ratio, the group’s highest; its 2024–25 free/reduced lunch eligible rate was 73%. Sweetwater Springs’ ratio was 22.2 and its eligible rate was 70% that year. Results for Bancroft’s grades six through eight are unknown because the state suppressed them, so its all-grades comparison is not perfectly like-for-like with K–5 schools.
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