Westside Elementary

Westside Elementary is a K-6 public school serving 376 students in Rio Linda, part of the Twin Rivers Unified district, which is a lower-performing district overall, but where Westside consistently scores above the district average in English, math, and science.

Compared to other local schools, Westside sits in the middle of a wide performance range; it outperforms some neighbors like Dry Creek Elementary and Orchard Elementary academically, but lags behind higher-performing schools like Regency Park Elementary and Heron (in Natomas Unified). A notable strength is the school's improving attendance, with chronic absenteeism dropping significantly and now being much better than the district average, though still above the state average. The school achieves these results with relatively efficient use of resources, managing higher student-teacher ratios and lower per-student spending than some comparable schools.

Important challenges for parents to consider include a clear pattern where student test scores tend to decline in the upper grades, and the school's performance has remained consistently average, without major improvement, for about a decade. For families, Westside represents a stable, mid-performing option within its district context, showing particular effectiveness with economically disadvantaged students, but with room for growth especially in supporting students as they advance toward middle school.