Summary
Richard L. Graves Middle is a grades 6–8 school in Whittier, California, serving 484 students and compared here with 10 nearby middle schools. Its 2025–26 proficiency rates were 35% in ELA, 22% in math, and 22% in science, versus nearby-school averages of 58%, 41%, and 39%. Graves was second-lowest among the 11 schools in all three subjects; only Nettie L. Waite Middle scored lower in each. The central takeaway is that Graves’s results are not only below state levels but also near the bottom of its local comparison group.
Science is Graves’s strongest subject relative to its district and the state, while math is weakest against the state. In 2025–26, science was 1 percentage point above the district, while ELA was 4 points below and math 5 points below. Compared with California, Graves was 14 points behind in science, 14 in ELA, and 16 in math. Seventh grade is a particular concern: ELA proficiency was 28%, compared with 41% in eighth grade, and seventh-grade ELA was the lowest among nearby schools. Eighth-grade ELA was stronger within Graves, though it remained below nearly all nearby schools.
Science has made the clearest progress: from 2022–23 to 2025–26, its proficiency rose 12 percentage points, compared with 6 points in math and 2 in ELA. Over that span, the state gap narrowed by 6 points in science but widened by 1 point in ELA. Chronic absenteeism also fell by 9 points, to 20% in 2025–26, but remained above the state’s 18% and district’s 17%. SchoolDigger rated Graves at the 31st percentile in California (2 stars); the South Whittier Elementary district was at the 36th percentile (2 stars). Graves’s 2024–25 student-teacher ratio was 19.5, close to the nearby-school average of 20.4. It reported 92% free/reduced lunch eligible in 2024–25, the highest nearby figure; California is identified in the supplied data as a statewide free-meals state, but Graves separately reports its school-specific eligibility measure. One notable SchoolDigger subgroup result: Graves ranked at the 76th percentile for how well it serves homeless students in 2025–26, up from the 61st percentile in 2023–24, compared with its overall 31st percentile in 2025–26.
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