Summary
Stella I. Hills Elementary serves 670 students in grades K–6 in Bakersfield, within the Bakersfield City district. The most important finding is that proficiency is low in every tested subject and trails both district and state rates: in 2025–2026, 13% of students were proficient in English Language Arts (ELA), 7% in math, and 3% in science, compared with 31%, 16%, and 19% districtwide and 49%, 38%, and 36% statewide.
Compared with nearby schools, the school was second-lowest in ELA, math, and science among 10 schools with all-grade results, ahead only of Rafer Johnson in each subject. Its results were also below nearby-school averages: by 14 points in ELA, 10 in math, and 15 in science. Science is the clearest local concern, while math is the least far behind the district and state. ELA has the largest gap to the state. Within the school, ELA was comparatively stronger in grade 6 (19%) and weakest in grade 5 (7%); grade-5 science was 3%, the lowest reported nearby result for that grade.
Test results have not followed the strong attendance improvement: from 2022–2023 to 2025–2026, ELA fell from 17% to 13%, math stayed about the same at 7%, and science fell from 8% to 3%. Chronic absenteeism, by contrast, dropped from 73% in 2021–2022 to 18% in 2025–2026, close to district and state rates. SchoolDigger ranks the school 5,757th of 5,804 California schools, in the 1st percentile, with 0 stars. Its 2024–2025 student-teacher ratio was 19.2, below the nearby median of 20.3. In 2024–2025, 84% of students were directly certified for free meals; the school is also flagged as likely serving free meals to all students. One subgroup result stands out: SchoolDigger placed English Language Learner Students at the 26th percentile in 2023–2024, compared with the school’s overall 1st percentile that year, after the subgroup had been at the 0th percentile the year before.
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