Summary:
Turlock has 18 schools—10 elementary, three middle, four high schools and one alternative school—serving students from elementary through high school. Among the 16 schools with 2025–26 test scores, the average was 40% proficient in ELA, 28% in math and 22% in science, compared with statewide rates of 49%, 38% and 36%. Results vary widely from school to school, so the most important finding is that a citywide average does not describe what families will find at any one school.
Walnut Elementary Education Center leads the group in all three subjects, with 66% proficient in ELA, 64% in math and 46% in science—about 17, 26 and 10 points above state rates. Chatom Elementary is another math standout at 51%, 13 points above the state. At the lower end, Cunningham Elementary has the lowest ELA result at 15%, while Roselawn High is lowest in math and science, at 2% and 1%. Roselawn’s outcomes are mixed: its graduation rate is 95%, above the state’s 88%, while chronic absenteeism is 68%, compared with 18% statewide. Turlock High also stands out in 11th-grade ELA, with 60% proficient versus 57% statewide.
Across the same 16 schools, average ELA improved from 38% in 2024–25 to 40% in 2025–26, narrowing the gap with the state from 11 points to 9. Math rose from 27% to 28%, but the gap remained about 10 points. Average science rose by less than a point as the state improved more, widening the gap from 11 points to 14. Individual schools had mixed changes: Julien Elementary gained 10 points in ELA, while Walter M. Brown Elementary gained 10 in science and Mountain View Middle fell 10 in science. As context, 2024–25 free/reduced lunch eligibility was 40% at Walnut and about 78–79% at Crowell, Wakefield and Cunningham; these figures describe schools but do not explain their results. Because schools serve different grade spans, all-grades scores are not perfectly like-for-like comparisons.
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