Fenton Charter Leadership Academy, Sun Valley CA

Original Research by School Decision on Fenton Charter Leadership Academy

Fenton Charter Leadership Academy is a small charter school serving kindergarten through sixth grade in Sun Valley, a mixed residential-industrial neighborhood in the northeastern San Fernando Valley. The school draws nearly all its families from the local area, serving a community where about four in five students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch and the vast majority are Hispanic. The enrollment is stable and modest for the grade band, with roughly equal cohorts across the early grades.

The school's academic performance is mixed and weighted toward the elementary grades. In English language arts across tested grades, students show solid proficiency in fourth and sixth grade, with about six in ten students meeting grade-level standards. Third and fifth grades trail considerably behind, around half and just over half respectively. Math presents a clearer challenge. Fourth grade performs above the midpoint at about half proficient, but fifth grade drops sharply to under one in three students meeting standards, and sixth grade recovers only slightly to roughly four in ten. Science proficiency in fifth grade sits at about three in ten. Overall, the school's combined proficiency across tested subjects and grades places it above the median among schools in Los Angeles County, though that positioning masks significant grade-level variability, particularly the fifth-grade decline in math. State testing data going back only one year means there is no trend to evaluate; a parent may want to ask the school about whether this pattern is new or consistent.

Sun Valley itself is a working neighborhood with a diversity of industrial parks, manufacturing, and residential streets, where much of daily commercial life runs along local shopping strips and Metrolink serves the area. Housing values and rental costs are moderate, and the neighborhood is actively planning new affordable housing and environmental restoration projects, including transit-oriented development near the Metrolink station. Employment centers in the area cluster around warehousing, logistics, and light manufacturing, though the broader region's major employers are entertainment and media companies in nearby Burbank.

The school's charter status means it operates under a separate authorization from Los Angeles County. No data on staffing, discipline, or attendance was provided, and the district brief found no major shifts in curriculum or operations within recent years beyond the district's participation in the state's expanded learning program. A family considering Fenton should understand that the school serves a majority low-income and Spanish-speaking community and should ask directly about English learner supports, intervention strategies for the performance dips visible in math at the upper grades, and how the school approaches the transition to middle school beyond sixth grade.

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Academic performance

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

Math

Grade 349%

School 49% · district not reported

▲ 6 pts above state median · ▲ 3 pts above county median

Grade 453%

School 53% · district not reported

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

Grade 529%

School 29% · district not reported

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

Grade 639%

School 39% · district not reported

▲ 8 pts above state median · ▲ 8 pts above county median

English language arts

Grade 349%

School 49% · district not reported

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

Grade 462%

School 62% · district not reported

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

Grade 553%

School 53% · district not reported

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

Grade 661%

School 61% · district not reported

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

Science

Grade 529%

School 29% · district not reported

▲ 1 pts above state median · ▲ 2 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.