La Verne Heights Elementary, La Verne CA

Original Research by School Decision on La Verne Heights Elementary

La Verne Heights Elementary is a small school of about six hundred students in grades kindergarten through fifth, located in La Verne, a residential suburb roughly thirty miles east of Los Angeles in the San Gabriel Valley foothills. The school sits in Bonita Unified School District, which serves the area alongside other schools from kindergarten through high school.

The elementary enrollment is heavily composed of Latino students, representing more than half the student body, with white students forming a substantial second group and Asian students, Black students, and multiracial students each representing smaller shares. About a third of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, suggesting moderate economic diversity in the school population. English learner status and special education enrollment data were not available from the school's records.

Math proficiency across tested grades shows a pattern of declining performance as students move up. In third grade, math proficiency reaches the high range, but by fifth grade it drops to about halfway. English language arts proficiency holds more consistently across grade three, four, and five, remaining in the mid-to-upper range in grades three and four, then rising again in fifth. Fifth-grade science proficiency sits in the lower-to-mid range. Taken together, the school's overall proficiency index places it in the top quartile among school buildings tested in Los Angeles County, a meaningful distinction that reflects stronger-than-median performance across the county's other elementary schools.

The data available covers only the current school year, so no trend information is available to show whether these results represent stable performance, improvement, or decline over time. The school serves only elementary grades, so graduation rate and secondary pathways are not applicable.

La Verne itself is a well-established residential community with a small-town character despite its proximity to the Los Angeles metro area. It mixes single-family homes, mobile home communities, and senior living with the University of La Verne, commercial districts, and recreational facilities. The city recently opened a light rail station in September 2025, spurring transit-oriented development around the downtown area and the Fairplex. A new facilities bond measure was placed on the ballot in June 2026 to address deferred repairs across Bonita Unified school sites, which would layer additional property tax costs on homeowners already paying bonds from prior years. Housing values in the area are substantial, and rents are moderate relative to incomes, though the cost of ownership significantly outpaces rental affordability.

The Bonita Unified School District has adopted an ethnic studies curriculum beginning in the 2025-2026 school year, aligning with California's requirement that high school students complete an ethnic studies course to graduate starting in 2030. This represents a lasting shift in the district's pedagogy at the secondary level.

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Academic performance

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

Math

Grade 380%

School 80% · District 77% · ▲ 3 pts above district

▲ 37 pts above state median · ▲ 33 pts above county median

Grade 473%

School 73% · District 70% · ▲ 4 pts above district

▲ 36 pts above state median · ▲ 33 pts above county median

Grade 554%

School 54% · District 63% · ▼ 8 pts below district

▲ 24 pts above state median · ▲ 21 pts above county median

English language arts

Grade 366%

School 66% · District 70% · ▼ 4 pts below district

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

Grade 465%

School 65% · District 67% · ▼ 2 pts below district

▲ 23 pts above state median · ▲ 21 pts above county median

Grade 573%

School 73% · District 74% · ▼ 2 pts below district

▲ 27 pts above state median · ▲ 26 pts above county median

Science

Grade 546%

School 46% · District 54% · ▼ 8 pts below district

▲ 18 pts above state median · ▲ 19 pts above county median

This schoolBonita 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 3Lower-income59%Higher-income69%10 pp gap

Grade 4Lower-income61%Higher-income67%6 pp gap

Grade 5Lower-income57%Higher-income79%22 pp gap

Mathematics

Grade 3Lower-income68%Higher-income84%16 pp gap

Grade 4Lower-income67%Higher-income76%9 pp gap

Grade 5Lower-income46%Higher-income58%13 pp gap