Big Pine Elementary

Big Pine Elementary is a small, rural K-8 school serving 121 students in the Big Pine Unified district, offering small class sizes and high per-student funding but showing significant year-to-year swings in its statewide academic ranking.

When compared to the larger Bishop Elementary in the neighboring Bishop Unified district, Big Pine has a major advantage in resources, spending nearly twice as much per student and having smaller classes, yet it consistently ranks lower academically. A critical challenge is chronic absenteeism, with over 40% of students missing significant school, a rate far higher than both the state average and nearby schools, which severely impacts learning. Academic performance varies dramatically by grade, from very strong 3rd-grade math scores to concerningly low middle-school English scores, indicating inconsistency across different classrooms and grade levels.

Despite its recent decline in ranking, the school has shown it can perform well, as it did a few years ago, suggesting the potential for improvement. The analysis indicates that tackling the attendance crisis is the most urgent step needed to help student outcomes, followed by addressing the sharp drop in performance in the upper grades and ensuring the school's substantial resources are effectively used to support all students consistently.