Our Community Charter, Chatsworth CA

Original Research by School Decision on Our Community Charter

Our Community Charter serves kindergarten through eighth grade in Chatsworth, a car-dependent San Fernando Valley neighborhood with a strong manufacturing and aerospace industrial base. The school is small, with an enrollment spread evenly across its grade bands.

The academic profile is uneven. English language arts performance is substantially stronger than math. In the fourth and fifth grades, English proficiency reaches solid ground; by eighth grade it recovers again to above the school midline. Math tells a different story. Third-graders perform reasonably well, and fourth grade shows a bump upward, but proficiency drops sharply in the fifth grade and collapses in the sixth and seventh grades before recovering slightly in eighth. Science results, available for fifth and eighth grades only, sit in the middle range: fifth graders show stronger results than eighth graders. Taken together, the school hovers near the middle of schools across Los Angeles County in overall proficiency, suggesting it is neither exceptionally strong nor significantly behind when compared to its county peers.

About a quarter of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch. The enrollment is racially mixed: roughly equal proportions of white and Hispanic students, with a smaller Asian population and other groups represented. Data on English learner enrollment and special education enrollment were not available, so a parent may want to ask the school directly about these populations and the support structures built around them.

Chatsworth itself is a place of low-density single-family homes and apartment complexes, hilly terrain, and winding streets where most errands require a car. The neighborhood has grown around a strip of civic anchors along Devonshire Street, anchored by the Metrolink station and Chatsworth Branch Library. Recent development has focused on transit-oriented housing and a large mixed-use campus around the new MGA Entertainment headquarters. Schools in the area compete with a tight rental market and rising home values, reflecting broader Southern California real estate pressure.

The school's charter status means it operates independently of the traditional district structure, though it answers to a district office bearing the same name. Beyond that structural fact, little is publicly reported about the school's distinctive pedagogy, curriculum choices, or operational changes in recent years. A parent considering this school would benefit from visiting, speaking with current families, and asking directly about how the school addresses the sixth- and seventh-grade math slump visible in the data.

See more original research from School Decision →

Academic performance

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

Math

Grade 361%

School 61% · district not reported

▲ 18 pts above state median · ▲ 15 pts above county median

Grade 469%

School 69% · district not reported

▲ 32 pts above state median · ▲ 29 pts above county median

Grade 553%

School 53% · district not reported

▲ 23 pts above state median · ▲ 20 pts above county median

Grade 633%

School 33% · district not reported

▲ 2 pts above state median · ▲ 2 pts above county median

Grade 728%

School 28% · district not reported

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

Grade 841%

School 41% · district not reported

▲ 13 pts above state median · ▲ 11 pts above county median

English language arts

Grade 348%

School 48% · district not reported

▲ 7 pts above state median · ▲ 6 pts above county median

Grade 478%

School 78% · district not reported

▲ 35 pts above state median · ▲ 34 pts above county median

Grade 571%

School 71% · district not reported

▲ 25 pts above state median · ▲ 24 pts above county median

Grade 655%

School 55% · district not reported

▲ 11 pts above state median · ▲ 10 pts above county median

Grade 735%

School 35% · district not reported

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

Grade 869%

School 69% · district not reported

▲ 25 pts above state median · ▲ 23 pts above county median

Science

Grade 565%

School 65% · district not reported

▲ 36 pts above state median · ▲ 37 pts above county median

Grade 845%

School 45% · district not reported

▲ 20 pts above state median · ▲ 21 pts above 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.

Proficiency by household income

English language arts

Grade 3Lower-income31%Higher-income57%25 pp gap

Grade 4Lower-income68%Higher-income83%15 pp gap

Grade 6Lower-income43%Higher-income60%17 pp gap

Grade 7Lower-income40%Higher-income32%8 pp gap

Grade 8Lower-income60%Higher-income74%14 pp gap

Mathematics

Grade 3Lower-income44%Higher-income70%26 pp gap

Grade 4Lower-income53%Higher-income80%27 pp gap

Grade 6Lower-income21%Higher-income37%16 pp gap

Grade 7Lower-income20%Higher-income32%12 pp gap

Grade 8Lower-income33%Higher-income44%11 pp gap