Summary:
Orange Unified has four middle schools, all serving grades 7–8, so their results are comparable by subject. In 2025–2026, the schools’ average proficiency was 54% in English language arts, 41% in math, and 42% in science—about 5, 3, and 6 percentage points above state results, respectively. But these averages mask wide differences between schools: the area’s most important finding is that one school leads by a large margin while results at the lower end are below state levels.
El Rancho Charter stands out, leading all three subjects with 79% proficiency in ELA, 66% in math, and 68% in science—30, 27, and 32 points above the state. Cerro Villa Middle ranks second in each subject, at 55%, 45%, and 49%, and is above the state by 6, 6, and 13 points. Results are lower at Portola Middle and Yorba Middle: Portola has the lowest ELA result, 36%, while Yorba has the lowest math and science results, 27% and 24%. Those results are 13 points below the state for Portola ELA, and 11 and 12 points below for Yorba math and science. One exception is Yorba’s 8th-grade ELA proficiency: 50%, about 1 point above the state.
Science improved most between 2024–2025 and 2025–2026: the four-school average rose 7 points, compared with a 3-point state increase, widening the schools’ average advantage from 3 to 6 points. The school-average ELA result fell 1 point while the state result rose by less than 1 point, narrowing the advantage from 6 to 5 points. SchoolDigger ranks El Rancho Charter 147th of 2,703 schools and Cerro Villa Middle 688th; Yorba Middle ranks 1,487th and Portola Middle 1,649th. For context, 2024–2025 free/reduced lunch eligible measures were 32% at El Rancho, 58% at Cerro Villa, 89% at Yorba, and 92% at Portola; El Rancho’s student-teacher ratio was 29.9, compared with 18.1 at Yorba. These are contextual differences, not explanations of results.
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