Summary
In Lakewood, California, Melbourne (Ella P.) Elementary serves 338 students in grades K–6; all ten nearby schools in the comparison also serve those grades. The central concern is low proficiency across subjects: in 2025–26, Melbourne scored below the state and ABC Unified in English language arts (ELA), math, and science. The most important finding is that Melbourne was below the nearby-school average in all three: 38% versus 51% in ELA, 26% versus 46% in math, and 22% versus 42% in science.
ELA is Melbourne’s strongest subject in comparison with the state, district, and nearby schools, while science is weakest against the state and nearby-school average. ELA proficiency was 38%, compared with 49% statewide and 64% in the district; math was 26%, versus 38% and 53%; and science was 22%, versus 36% and 49%. There are some grade-level bright spots: fourth-grade ELA was 47%, just above the state’s 46%, and sixth-grade ELA and math were close to state results. Third-grade math was a particular weakness at 21%, compared with 47% statewide, and was lower than every nearby school’s result. Attendance is a positive contrast: chronic absenteeism fell to 13% in 2025–26, below the state’s 18% and the nearby-school average of 14%.
Over four years, ELA proficiency rose by 4 points and its gap with the state narrowed by 2 points; math rose by 3 points overall, while science fell by 2 points and its state gap widened by 8 points. SchoolDigger rates Melbourne at 2 stars and places it in the 34th percentile statewide (rank 3,827 of 5,804), second-lowest among Melbourne and the ten nearby schools. Its 2024–25 student-teacher ratio was 22.5, close to the nearby average of 22.6; 92% of students were free/reduced lunch eligible that year, the third-highest reported nearby figure. SchoolDigger’s group-specific rankings show a stronger relative standing for Migrant Students (78th percentile in 2025–26, versus 34th overall), while the English Language Learner ranking dropped from the 63rd percentile in 2021–22 to the 28th in 2023–24.
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