Summary:
Zip code 95616 has two middle schools in Davis Joint Unified: Oliver Wendell Holmes Junior High and Ralph Waldo Emerson Junior High. Both serve grades 7–9 and have similar enrollments, with 588 students at Holmes and 524 at Emerson. The clearest takeaway is that both schools are above state proficiency levels in all three reported subjects, and Holmes leads Emerson in each.
Holmes stands out at the top, with 2025–2026 proficiency of 73% in English language arts (ELA), 74% in math and 66% in science; Emerson scored 67%, 66% and 56%, respectively. Holmes’s advantages were 6 percentage points in ELA, 7 in math and 11 in science—the widest separation. Emerson is the lower-scoring school of the two, but its results were still above state figures in every subject. Across both schools, the average was 70% in math versus 38% statewide, 61% in science versus 36%, and 70% in ELA versus 49%; math showed the largest area-wide advantage over the state.
From 2024–2025 to 2025–2026, the two-school average fell by 3 percentage points in ELA and 2 in math, while rising by 1 in science; because state results improved, the area’s lead over the state narrowed in all three subjects. Emerson’s science score rose by 2 points, an exception to its ELA and math declines, but the state science result rose by 3 points. SchoolDigger’s statewide percentile rankings were steadier for Holmes, at the 94th, 95th and 94th percentiles over three years, while Emerson’s moved from the 93rd to the 92nd to the 89th. The schools’ 2024–2025 student-teacher ratios were nearly identical at 19.2 and 19.3; their reported free/reduced lunch eligible measures that year were 25% at Holmes and 22% at Emerson. The supplied test-score trend covers two school years.
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