Jefferson Elementary, Compton CA

Original Research by School Decision on Jefferson Elementary

Jefferson Elementary sits on East 133rd Street in Compton, a city in the southern end of Los Angeles County with a dense urban character, a strong identity rooted in hip-hop and R&B culture, and an economy built largely around manufacturing, logistics, and warehousing tied to the nearby ports. The school serves kindergarten through eighth grade, which is relatively uncommon and means families stay with the same campus from a child's earliest school years through middle school, rather than transitioning to a separate junior high.

The student body is almost entirely Hispanic, with a very small share of Black students and a handful of students from other groups. The vast majority of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, placing this among the higher-poverty schools by that measure. Data on English learner rates and special education enrollment was not available in what was provided.

On state assessments, the picture at Jefferson is uneven and worth looking at closely by grade. The strongest results are at the endpoints: third grade in math and eighth grade in both math and ELA show proficiency rates that are solidly above average for a school in this community context. Those are genuinely good results. The middle grades tell a different story. Fourth and fifth grade math proficiency drops to well below half of students meeting the standard, and fifth grade ELA is in a similar range. The middle school grades show some recovery, particularly in eighth grade ELA where results climb back up sharply. Science results, tested at fifth and eighth grade, are modest, with the fifth-grade figure lower than any other tested subject. Across all tested subjects and grades combined, Jefferson lands just above the midpoint relative to districts in Los Angeles County, which is a meaningful position given the economic context of the school's enrollment, though parents of students in the middle elementary grades may want to ask the school directly about its approach to math and literacy instruction in those years.

Trend data is limited to a single year of results, so it is not possible to say whether scores are rising, falling, or holding steady. A parent would want to ask the school about that directly.

Compton Unified, the district Jefferson belongs to, has been through a notable stretch of facilities investment. A major new Compton High School campus opened for the 2025-26 school year, designed around project-based learning, funded by an earlier bond measure. The district also publicly reported opening a new pathway-focused high school, the Compton Academy of Technology and Innovation, in August 2025, which allows students to pursue a high school diploma alongside a tuition-free associate degree in areas like biotechnology and cybersecurity. Voters in June 2026 approved another facilities bond, this one aimed at building a new Dominguez High School, which carries an ongoing property-tax obligation for homeowners in the district. For a family with a child currently at Jefferson, these high school developments represent the academic environment their child would likely enter in a few years.

On housing, the Compton zip code carrying this school shows home values that are considerably below the California statewide benchmark but still well above the national median. Rents in the area represent a substantial share of typical household income, a mismatch that publicly reported sources from the Compton Chamber of Commerce and city planning documents identify as a real constraint on the community. The city is actively adding affordable housing, including a transit-oriented development effort around the Metro A Line light rail station, and several projects are under construction or recently opened. The Metro A Line itself runs through Compton with stops at Compton and Artesia stations, giving residents transit access into the broader Los Angeles rail network.

Jefferson does not appear to carry magnet or charter status, and no information was available on specific program offerings, course access, staffing levels, or attendance and discipline data. Those gaps are worth asking the school about directly if they matter to a family's decision.

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Academic performance

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

Math

Grade 383%

School 83% · District 58% · ▲ 25 pts above district

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

Grade 432%

School 32% · District 46% · ▼ 14 pts below district

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

Grade 523%

School 23% · District 33% · ▼ 10 pts below district

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

Grade 641%

School 41% · District 44% · ▼ 3 pts below district

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

Grade 750%

School 50% · District 43% · ▲ 7 pts above district

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

Grade 860%

School 60% · District 40% · ▲ 20 pts above district

▲ 32 pts above state median · ▲ 30 pts above county median

English language arts

Grade 362%

School 62% · District 50% · ▲ 11 pts above district

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

Grade 449%

School 49% · District 47% · ▲ 2 pts above district

▲ 7 pts above state median · ▲ 5 pts above county median

Grade 543%

School 43% · District 45% · ▼ 2 pts below district

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

Grade 651%

School 51% · District 50% · ▲ 1 pts above district

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

Grade 743%

School 43% · District 57% · ▼ 14 pts below district

▼ 2 pts below state median · ▼ 2 pts below county median

Grade 882%

School 82% · District 53% · ▲ 29 pts above district

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

Science

Grade 522%

School 22% · District 21% · ▲ 1 pts above district

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

Grade 836%

School 36% · District 19% · ▲ 18 pts above district

▲ 11 pts above state median · ▲ 12 pts above county median

This schoolCompton 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.