Summary:
Zip code 95348 has three elementary schools in Merced City Elementary School District: Rudolph Rivera Elementary serves kindergarten through grade 6, Joe Stefani serves grades 3–6, and Franklin Elementary serves kindergarten through grade 3. The most important finding is that Franklin leads clearly in the shared third-grade comparison, while the other two schools are below state results in both ELA and math.
Franklin is the academic standout: 51% of third graders were proficient in both ELA and math, compared with 30% and 29% at Joe Stefani and 27% and 28% at Rivera, respectively. Franklin led the next-highest school by 21 points in ELA and 22 points in math, and exceeded state results by 7 and 4 points. Joe was slightly ahead of Rivera in both subjects. Results also vary widely across the schools in all-grade math: 51% at Franklin versus 19% at Rivera, a 32-point spread. Franklin’s all-grade results match its third-grade results, while the other schools include grades through 6, so third grade is the fairest shared comparison.
Area averages improved from 2024–2025 to 2025–2026, but Franklin drove much of the gain: its ELA rose 16 points and math 22 points, while Rivera’s ELA fell 2 points and Joe’s was essentially unchanged. Math rose 2 points at Rivera and 1 at Joe. SchoolDigger rank-history percentiles also fell over the latest three listed years, from 26th to 22nd at Rivera and 31st to 26th at Joe. As context, the schools’ student-teacher ratios were 27.0 at Rivera, 27.6 at Joe, and 22.2 at Franklin in 2024–2025. All reported free/reduced lunch eligible figures for 2024–2025: 76% at Rivera, 88% at Joe, and 82% at Franklin. Chronic absenteeism in 2025–2026 was highest at Rivera (30%), compared with 22% at Joe and 23% at Franklin; all three exceeded the 18% state rate.
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