The top reported proficiency rate is 57% in English language arts. The lowest is 52% in Math.
Original Research by School Decision on Thomas Edison Elementary
Thomas Edison Elementary sits on West Chestnut Street in Burbank, serving children from kindergarten through fifth grade as a regular public school within Burbank Unified. The enrollment is solidly mid-sized for an elementary school, with students spread fairly evenly across all six grade levels.
The student body reflects a genuinely mixed community. White students make up the largest share, followed by Hispanic students, with Asian students and students identifying as two or more races each present at meaningful levels. Black students are a small fraction of enrollment. A modest share of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, placing the school well below the high-poverty end of the spectrum. Data on English learners and students with IEPs was not available in what we reviewed, so a parent wanting to understand those supports should ask the school directly.
On California's state assessments, Edison's results are a mixed picture. In math, tested third through fifth graders are performing around or just past the halfway mark for proficiency, with fifth graders showing somewhat stronger results than third graders. English language arts follows a similar arc, with third and fourth grade results near mid-range but fifth grade showing a noticeably higher share of students meeting proficiency. Fifth grade science lands close to the overall math range. Taken together, the school's overall proficiency index sits above the midpoint relative to districts in Los Angeles County, which is a reasonable anchor point. Trend data is limited to a single year, so it is not possible to say whether scores are moving up, down, or holding steady. A parent who wants more context on trajectories may want to ask the school or district for multi-year classroom-level detail.
No program offerings data was available, and the district brief search did not turn up recent strategic changes or parent-relevant policy shifts within Burbank Unified, so those sections were left out rather than speculated on.
The neighborhood around the school is part of Burbank's residential fabric, which sits in an unusual relationship to the surrounding city. Burbank is a compact place, roughly seventeen square miles, and its residential streets exist close to major studio lots and commercial corridors without much physical distance between them. Publicly reported sources describe the city as retaining a hometown texture despite its position inside Los Angeles County, with the entertainment industry's workforce -- studio professionals, animators, long-time residents -- giving the community its particular character. Downtown Burbank, Magnolia Park, and the Media District each have their own feel, and the city's library system and parks including Wildwood Canyon and Johnny Carson Park give families anchors beyond school. Metrolink and Amtrak both serve the city, and a growing bike path network connects residential areas to transit. The city is also in the middle of a meaningful downtown build-out, with transit-oriented residential and mixed-use projects publicly described as adding a substantial number of housing units over the coming years, which could reshape both the neighborhood population and school enrollment over time.
The housing market here is expensive by almost any national measure. Home values in the zip code are well above the California statewide benchmark, and rent is high enough that a renter putting a typical portion of income toward housing would be paying a substantial share. The gap between owning and renting monthly costs is wide, favoring rentals from a pure cash-flow standpoint, though neither path is inexpensive. Families moving to the area specifically to access this school should factor in one of the higher-cost residential markets in the Los Angeles region.
What the data shows is an elementary school with test results modestly above the county median, a socioeconomically mixed but not heavily low-income student population, and a setting in a compact, entertainment-industry-shaped city that is actively adding housing and residents. The academic picture is not exceptional and not weak; it falls in the solid middle of a very large county. The missing data on IEPs, English learner services, and program specifics are real gaps, and families with particular needs in those areas would benefit from a direct conversation with the school.
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