Aspire Firestone Academy Charter, South Gate CA

Original Research by School Decision on Aspire Firestone Academy Charter

Aspire Firestone Academy Charter is a small kindergarten-through-fifth-grade charter school in South Gate, a predominantly Latino, family-oriented city in southeastern Los Angeles County about seven miles from downtown. The school serves a student body that is nearly entirely Latino, with almost all students qualifying for free or reduced-price lunch, marking a school anchored in a low-income community.

Academic performance on state assessments shows mixed and uneven results. Across tested grades, proficiency in English language arts averages in the upper-thirties percentile, with third grade at the lowest point and fifth grade slightly higher. Math proficiency is somewhat stronger, averaging in the mid-forties, with fourth grade reaching about mid-fifties and third grade around a third. Science proficiency in fifth grade is notably low. Compared to districts across Los Angeles County, the school's overall proficiency index sits below the midpoint, a position a parent may want to understand more deeply with the school when visiting.

The school has undergone a significant pedagogical shift. At the start of the 2020-21 school year, the school community rewrote its mission statement around an explicitly antiracist framework, centering equity, social justice, and activism alongside rigorous, standards-aligned curriculum and embedded social-emotional learning. This reorientation is a defining feature of the school's educational approach and would be central to why a family chooses it or not.

Staffing stability has improved noticeably post-pandemic. The broader Aspire Los Angeles network, which includes Firestone, created an internal teacher-residency pathway through Alder Graduate School of Education that lifted teacher retention significantly, with particularly large gains in special education positions. This addresses a widespread struggle many schools faced and suggests more classroom continuity going forward.

The school's enrollment has contracted in recent years, a trend worth monitoring. The shift affects class sizes and the overall composition of peer groups, and families considering the school may want to ask directly about growth outlook and viability.

South Gate itself is walkable in its downtown core along Tweedy Boulevard, which hosts shops, markets, and eateries, though a car remains useful for most errands. The city has parks, a county library, and bus transit, and is on a development trajectory that includes planned light rail. Housing is less expensive than the state benchmark, and the rental market is active. The community is well established, with a strong manufacturing and retail foundation and proximity to regional ports and freeways.

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Academic performance

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

Math

Grade 334%

School 34% · district not reported

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

Grade 455%

School 55% · district not reported

▲ 17 pts above state median · ▲ 14 pts above county median

Grade 546%

School 46% · district not reported

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

English language arts

Grade 336%

School 36% · district not reported

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

Grade 436%

School 36% · district not reported

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

Grade 542%

School 42% · district not reported

▼ 3 pts below state median · ▼ 4 pts below county median

Science

Grade 517%

School 17% · district not reported

▼ 11 pts below state median · ▼ 10 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.