Best Public Schools in Zip Code 94597

ZIP code 94597 has two schools in the Walnut Creek Elementary District: Buena Vista Elementary, serving kindergarten through grade 5, and Walnut Creek Intermediate, serving grades 6–8; there are no high schools in the list. Enrollment is 495 at Buena Vista and 940 at Walnut Creek Intermediate. The strongest overall finding is that both schools’ 2025–26 results are well above California’s in all three subjects: their leads are 24–25 points in ELA, 33–35 in math and 31–38 in science.

Buena Vista has the higher reported all-grades rate in each subject, though the gap between schools is small in ELA and math and larger in science: its rates are 74% in ELA, 73% in math and 74% in science, compared with 73%, 71% and 67% at Walnut Creek Intermediate. Those differences are 1 point in ELA, 2 in math and 7 in science; Buena Vista’s science result is particularly strong relative to the district, at 10 points above its reported rate. Both schools are strong relative to the state, so Walnut Creek Intermediate’s lower figures in this comparison do not mean it falls below state results. Because the schools serve different grade spans, their all-grades figures are not same-grade comparisons.

Both schools improved in ELA and science from 2024–25 to 2025–26, while math moved in opposite directions: ELA rose by 3 points at each school, and science rose by 16 points at Walnut Creek Intermediate and 15 at Buena Vista; math rose by 6 points at Walnut Creek Intermediate but fell by 2 at Buena Vista. SchoolDigger’s rankings also improved: Walnut Creek Intermediate moved from the 90th to the 94th percentile and Buena Vista from the 89th to the 92nd; both have five stars in 2025–26. Chronic absenteeism was 10% at Walnut Creek Intermediate and 9% at Buena Vista, versus 18% statewide. As context, student-teacher ratios are 22.1 and 23.5, respectively, and free/reduced lunch eligible rates in 2024–25 were 15% and 18%; these are observations, not explanations for the results.