Summary:
ZIP code 95388 has five schools: four elementary schools serving kindergarten through grade 5 and one middle school serving grades 6–8; Washington Elementary serves kindergarten through grade 8. Four schools are in the Winton district, while Washington is in the Merced River Union Elementary district. In 2025–2026, the five-school average was 46% in ELA, compared with 49% statewide; 38% in math, nearly level with the 38% state average; and 37% in science, compared with 36% statewide. The central finding is that school results vary far more than these small differences between area and state averages suggest.
Frank Sparkes Elementary stands out in ELA and math, with 64% and 53% proficient, respectively; those results are 28 points above Winfield Elementary, which had the lowest scores in both subjects, at 36% and 32%. Sybil N. Crookham Elementary leads science at 56%, while Winfield is lowest at 17%, a 38-point spread. SchoolDigger gives Sparkes the group’s highest ranking—79th percentile and four stars—and Winfield the lowest, at the 36th percentile and two stars. These rankings are SchoolDigger measures, not proficiency scores.
Science improved most over time: the school average rose 8 points from 2024–2025 to 2025–2026, while ELA fell 3 points and math rose 1. The science gains were especially large at Crookham, up 23 points, and Sparkes, up 13; Sparkes nevertheless remained the ELA leader despite a 7-point decline. School context figures do not neatly track results: student–teacher ratios ranged from 21.2 at Crookham to 24.6 at Washington. All five reported free/reduced lunch eligible figures for 2024–2025; Sparkes and Winfield were nearly identical at 92.7% and 92.6%, despite their substantially different proficiency scores.
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