King-chavez Academy of Excellence, San Diego CA

Original Research by School Decision on King-chavez Academy of Excellence

King-Chavez Academy of Excellence is a small charter school serving kindergarten through eighth grade in San Diego. The school operates its own district and recently underwent major structural changes, including opening a brand-new two-story building for the school year and consolidating multiple campuses into unified schools. The network now operates a single TK-8 campus where families with multiple children can enroll and drop off at one location, a meaningful shift for households with kids across grade bands.

The school's identity centers on a Dual Language Immersion program designed to help students earn the California State Seal of Biliteracy, a credential with real weight in college admissions and the job market. This bilingual pathway is not incidental; it is the pedagogical core. For families seeking deliberate bilingual education, this is the defining reason to enroll.

Student composition is predominantly Hispanic, reflecting the neighborhood's demographics. A very substantial share of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, indicating the school serves a low-income community. Enrollment is small, around mid-range for the grade band, with about two dozen kindergarteners through eighth graders per grade in most years.

State testing results are low across the board. In English language arts, proficiency ranges from roughly one in eight students at third grade up to roughly two in five at seventh grade. Math performance is weaker, with proficiency rates clustering between roughly one in six students overall, and in some grades like fifth and seventh, only a small fraction of students meet state proficiency benchmarks. Science proficiency, tested in fifth and eighth grade, is similarly constrained. Across all tested subjects and grades, the school's overall proficiency sits in the bottom quartile when compared to other districts in San Diego County. The school has limited trend data, so whether performance is improving, holding steady, or declining cannot be determined from the available information.

A parent may want to look into further with the school what support structures exist for students struggling with grade-level content, whether the bilingual immersion model itself is showing progress in either Spanish or English literacy over time, and how the school tracks whether students are on pace for strong middle school transitions. The new building and consolidated structure are assets; understanding what instructional changes or supports have accompanied that infrastructure investment would help frame what the low proficiency numbers mean and where improvement may be heading.

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Academic performance

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

Math

Grade 318%

School 18% · district not reported

▼ 25 pts below state median · ▼ 30 pts below county median

Grade 429%

School 29% · district not reported

▼ 8 pts below state median · ▼ 13 pts below county median

Grade 58%

School 8% · district not reported

▼ 22 pts below state median · ▼ 26 pts below county median

Grade 620%

School 20% · district not reported

▼ 10 pts below state median · ▼ 15 pts below county median

Grade 77%

School 7% · district not reported

▼ 23 pts below state median · ▼ 28 pts below county median

Grade 814%

School 14% · district not reported

▼ 14 pts below state median · ▼ 17 pts below county median

English language arts

Grade 314%

School 14% · district not reported

▼ 27 pts below state median · ▼ 33 pts below county median

Grade 419%

School 19% · district not reported

▼ 23 pts below state median · ▼ 29 pts below county median

Grade 538%

School 38% · district not reported

▼ 8 pts below state median · ▼ 15 pts below county median

Grade 620%

School 20% · district not reported

▼ 24 pts below state median · ▼ 32 pts below county median

Grade 740%

School 40% · district not reported

▼ 5 pts below state median · ▼ 12 pts below county median

Grade 823%

School 23% · district not reported

▼ 22 pts below state median · ▼ 24 pts below county median

Science

Grade 54%

School 4% · district not reported

▼ 24 pts below state median · ▼ 30 pts below county median

Grade 818%

School 18% · district not reported

▼ 7 pts below state median · ▼ 13 pts below county median

This schoolDistrict average, 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.