Middle Schools in El Rancho Unified

Three middle schools in El Rancho Unified serve grades 6–8: Rivera Middle, STEAM Academy @ Burke, and North Park Academy of the Arts. They enroll 1,590 students altogether, or about 530 per school. In 2025–26, the schools’ average proficiency was 39% in English language arts (ELA), 25% in math, and 23% in science, below the state rates of 49%, 38%, and 36%. The most important area-wide finding is that average proficiency is below the state level in all three subjects.

STEAM Academy @ Burke is the achievement leader, with 53% proficient in ELA, 35% in math, and 30% in science; it is the only school above the state in ELA, by 4 percentage points. North Park Academy of the Arts is lowest in all three subjects, at 27% in ELA, 16% in math, and 19% in science—22, 22, and 17 points below state rates, respectively. Rivera Middle falls between them at 37% in ELA, 24% in math, and 22% in science. The contrast is especially large in ELA: Burke’s result is 27 points higher than North Park’s.

Results improved most consistently at Rivera, which gained 7 points in ELA, 1 in math, and 4 in science from 2024–25 to 2025–26. Burke gained 8 points in ELA but slipped 1 point in math, while North Park’s science rose 5 points as its ELA fell 1 point. SchoolDigger gives Burke 61st-percentile standing and 3 stars, compared with Rivera’s 34th percentile and 2 stars and North Park’s 17th percentile and 1 star. Student-teacher ratios were similar—22.2 at Rivera, 22.9 at Burke, and 22.2 at North Park. The schools also report different shares of students free/reduced lunch eligible in 2024–25: 87% at Rivera, 82% at Burke, and 88% at North Park; these figures describe context, not a cause of achievement differences.