Howell Mountain Elementary

The Howell Mountain Elementary area has one K–8 school, enrolling 85 students, so there are no other schools in this list to compare directly. On the latest all-grades tests, in 2025–2026, 24% of students were proficient in English language arts (ELA), compared with 49% statewide, and 17% were proficient in math, compared with 38% statewide. The school was below California in both subjects, by 25 percentage points in ELA and 22 points in math—the most important finding for families weighing the available achievement results.

There is no school-to-school top or bottom in this one-school list; being the only school does not mean Howell Mountain leads or trails other local schools. Within its reported grade results, fourth grade stands out as a weaker point than third grade, especially in ELA: proficiency fell from 27% in grade 3 to 8% in grade 4, while California rose from 44% to 46%. In math, Howell Mountain fell from 27% to 17%, compared with a statewide decline from 47% to 42%. The school–state gap grew from 17 to 37 points in ELA and from 20 to 26 points in math. Because the list includes only one school and several grade-level results are suppressed, it cannot show how schools compare across the area or whether this grade pattern continues in other grades.

The two reported years show the school moving farther from state results in both ELA and math. From 2024–2025 to 2025–2026, Howell Mountain’s ELA proficiency fell from 27% to 24% and its math proficiency from 18% to 17%, while California’s rates rose slightly in both subjects; the gaps widened by 4 points in ELA and 2 points in math. SchoolDigger’s statewide percentile for the school was 9th in 2025–2026, compared with 48th in 2022–2023 and 25th in 2021–2022; these are ranking percentiles, not proficiency rates. SchoolDigger also gives it a district rank of 947 out of 968, at the 2nd percentile, and 0 stars. Other context measures include a 14.1 student–teacher ratio in 2024–2025, 34% free/reduced lunch eligible in 2024–2025, and chronic absenteeism of 34% in 2025–2026, compared with 18% statewide.