Daniel Lewis Middle, Paso Robles CA

Original Research by School Decision on Daniel Lewis Middle

Daniel Lewis Middle serves sixth through eighth grade in Paso Robles, a city in San Luis Obispo County where agriculture, wine tourism, and a walkable historic downtown coexist with steadily expanding residential neighborhoods. The school sits within Paso Robles Joint Unified and draws from a community where home values run well above the national norm, roughly in line with California as a whole, though rents have edged down slightly in the past year. A mortgage here would consume a substantial share of median household income, a real affordability pressure for families weighing the area.

The student body is a mix of roughly two main groups, with Hispanic and white students together making up the large majority of enrollment. More than three in five students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, which places the school in a genuinely high-need economic context. Data on English learner enrollment and special education rates were not available in what was provided.

On the Smarter Balanced assessments, proficiency in English language arts holds roughly in the low-to-mid forties across sixth and eighth grade, with seventh grade coming in somewhat lower. Math proficiency is weaker across all three grades, and it declines across the grade levels, with eighth grade math being the most challenging point. Science, tested only at eighth grade through the CAST assessment, lands in the low thirties. Taken together, the school's overall proficiency index falls below the midpoint among the districts in San Luis Obispo County, based on the county comparison set. These are modest results by statewide standards, and parents whose students need significant academic acceleration may want to ask the school directly about course options, support structures, and how students are prepared for the transition to high school. Participation rates across all tested grades are high, which means the numbers reflect nearly the full student population rather than a selected group.

One practical piece of context: the district recently made structural changes that directly affect where middle schoolers land. Publicly reported coverage indicates that starting in the 2024-25 school year, the district reconfigured elementary grades through sixth and moved the Georgia Brown Dual Immersion program onto the former Lewis Middle campus, which in turn shifted Lewis students to Flamson Middle School. The data in this profile reflects Daniel Lewis as a named entity, but families should confirm with the district exactly which campus their child will attend and what the current grade configuration looks like, since these changes were recent enough to affect enrollment and programming in ways the available data may not fully capture.

The district is also publicly reported to be advancing a new general obligation bond for a future ballot, with discussions of a range of possible funding amounts aimed at modernizing classrooms and expanding career technical education at the high school level. If approved, it would increase property taxes for homeowners in the district. A separate bond measure passed earlier has already funded a major campus renovation for the Georgia Brown Dual Immersion program, with construction expected to run through late next year.

Paso Robles itself is a city with genuine character beyond the school. The downtown is genuinely walkable, organized around a central park that hosts farmers markets and community events, with tasting rooms, restaurants, and boutique shops within a compact district. Civic infrastructure includes a city library with a state parks pass program and local transit connecting to neighboring communities. Growth is planned and capped rather than rapid, with a large residential development expected to add homes over the coming decade, but the city operates under population and housing-unit limits that prevent runaway expansion.

Chronic absenteeism data was not available for this school, nor were staffing ratios or course access details. Program offerings were not included in the data. Those gaps are worth raising with the school directly.

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Academic performance

How students perform on state tests, by grade, set against the district.

Math

Grade 637%

School 37% · District 27% · ▲ 9 pts above district

▲ 6 pts above state median · ▼ 6 pts below county median

Grade 725%

School 25% · District 29% · ▼ 4 pts below district

▼ 5 pts below state median · ▼ 5 pts below county median

Grade 823%

School 23% · District 27% · ▼ 4 pts below district

▼ 5 pts below state median · ▼ 6 pts below county median

English language arts

Grade 641%

School 41% · District 46% · ▼ 6 pts below district

▼ 3 pts below state median · ▼ 14 pts below county median

Grade 735%

School 35% · District 44% · ▼ 9 pts below district

▼ 11 pts below state median · ▼ 10 pts below county median

Grade 842%

School 42% · District 38% · ▲ 4 pts above district

▼ 2 pts below state median · ▼ 7 pts below county median

Science

Grade 830%

School 30% · District 32% · ▼ 1 pts below district

▲ 5 pts above state median · ▼ 3 pts below county median

Social studies

Grade 847%

School 47% · District 48% · ▼ 1 pts below district

▼ 2 pts below state median · ▼ 10 pts below county median

This schoolPaso Robles Joint Unified, same grade

Graduation rate (ACGR) reflects the federally published Adjusted Cohort Graduation Rate for the most recent year available. We refresh this data annually at the close of each academic year in June. The federal source publishes a banded rate (for example, "90-94%") instead of an exact number for cohorts small enough to risk identifying individual students. The state distribution chart, where shown, plots every school in the state with a published rate or band; schools whose rate is federally suppressed are excluded. Where the federal source publishes a band rather than an exact rate, the school is placed within its band using a stable, ID-derived offset, so its position is consistent across visits.

Proficiency by household income

English language arts

Grade 6Lower-income32%Higher-income56%24 pp gap

Grade 7Lower-income26%Higher-income54%27 pp gap

Grade 8Lower-income35%Higher-income53%17 pp gap

Mathematics

Grade 6Lower-income26%Higher-income55%29 pp gap

Grade 7Lower-income15%Higher-income49%34 pp gap

Grade 8Lower-income18%Higher-income32%15 pp gap