Summary:
Eight elementary schools serve Bakersfield’s 93308 ZIP code, with grade spans from K–5 or K–6. In 2025–26, their equal-weighted averages were 31% in English language arts (ELA), 22% in math and 20% in science—about 19, 17 and 16 percentage points below the state, respectively. Results varied widely from school to school: the spreads were 33 points in ELA, 37 in math and 33 in science. The ZIP-code average therefore hides the most important finding: a child’s results may look very different depending on the school.
Olive Drive Elementary and Discovery Elementary stand out, in different subjects. Olive led in math at 45% and science at 43%, respectively 6 and 7 points above the state; its 49% ELA result was less than a point below. Its math and science scores were also 27 and 26 points above the averages of the other seven schools. Discovery led in ELA at 51%, 2 points above the state and 22 points above the other schools’ average; its math score was 43%, 5 points above the state. At the low end, Beardsley Elementary had the lowest ELA and math results, 18% and 8%, about 31 points below state rates in both. San Lauren Elementary had the lowest science result, 9%, 27 points below the state.
Across the two test years, the school averages fell by about 3 points in ELA and 2 points in each of math and science, while state results rose in all three; the gap widened most in science, by about 5 points. SchoolDigger’s 2025–26 rankings place Olive Drive and Discovery at the 64th and 62nd percentiles, compared with the 3rd percentile for Beardsley. Other differences may matter to families: student-teacher ratios range from 20.0 to 24.7, and chronic absenteeism ranges from 5% at Discovery to 36% at North Beardsley Elementary. In 2024–25, Olive Drive reported 34% free/reduced lunch eligible, while San Lauren Elementary reported 95%; North Beardsley and Beardsley instead reported 78% and 77% directly certified for free meals. These are different measures and should be treated as context, not as a direct comparison.
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