Culver City Middle, Culver City CA

Original Research by School Decision on Culver City Middle

Culver City Middle serves grades six through eight in Culver City, a small, media-driven city in southwest Los Angeles County with a robust housing market and a fast-changing employment base. The school's test results show a split performance: English language arts proficiency is solid, whereas math proficiency lags.

In English language arts across all grades, about six in ten students meet proficiency. Eighth grade science stands at about one in two. Mathematics is the weaker subject, with just under half of sixth graders proficient and the rate declining through seventh and eighth grade. The overall proficiency index across tested subjects and grades places the school above the midpoint among Los Angeles County's middle schools, a meaningful indicator that the school is performing reasonably well in context, even as the math numbers suggest a gap worth addressing.

The school enrolls a mix of backgrounds. About four in ten students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, a measure of economic need. The enrollment spans multiple racial and ethnic groups, with students who identify as Hispanic forming the largest share, followed by white students, two or more races, and Asian students, with smaller numbers of Black students and other groups represented. Specific data on English learner enrollment and special education enrollment were not available from the state reporting.

Culver City sits in a neighborhood shaped by entertainment and tech. Sony Pictures and newer streaming and tech firms including Apple, Amazon MGM Studios, TikTok, and others have anchored recent growth and investment. This context shapes both housing costs and family employment patterns. Home values in the area are quite high, and rents are steep relative to the national median. For families working in or commuting to the media and tech sector, or those already living in the city, this school serves a community in flux between historic residential character and new commercial energy.

The Culver City Unified School District passed two recent voter-approved measures that directly affect families with school-age children. Measure E, approved in 2024, is a general obligation bond to modernize aging schools; it levies a property tax on assessed value that will last as long as bonds are outstanding, a long-term obligation for property owners. Measure O, approved in 2024, extends an existing parcel tax through the early 2030s to fund teachers, counselors, coaches, and classroom support. These are property-based commitments that a family buying or renting in the area should understand. Most local school buildings date to the early 1950s and had not seen major renovation before these measures, meaning families can expect ongoing modernization work.

At the high school level, the district has moved toward a "college prep for all" model in ninth and tenth grade English, replacing a prior two-tiered honors and non-honors track. This reflects a district-level choice about how to organize instruction, and it remained a topic of parent and community discussion into 2025. The specifics of how this plays out at Culver City Middle were not available in the data.

A parent considering this school would be looking at a middle school with stronger English and science footing than math, serving a diverse student body in a neighborhood of rising costs and employment growth in media and tech. The district is investing in facilities and staffing, though that investment comes with property tax obligations families in the area bear.

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Academic performance

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

Math

Grade 651%

School 51% · District 51%

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

Grade 747%

School 47% · District 47%

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

Grade 844%

School 44% · District 43%

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

English language arts

Grade 661%

School 61% · District 61%

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

Grade 763%

School 63% · District 63%

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

Grade 860%

School 60% · District 60%

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

Science

Grade 851%

School 51% · District 51%

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

Social studies

Grade 862%

School 62% · District 61% · ▲ 1 pts above district

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

This schoolCulver City 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 6Lower-income38%Higher-income75%38 pp gap

Grade 7Lower-income42%Higher-income78%36 pp gap

Grade 8Lower-income39%Higher-income77%38 pp gap

Mathematics

Grade 6Lower-income27%Higher-income66%39 pp gap

Grade 7Lower-income24%Higher-income63%39 pp gap

Grade 8Lower-income17%Higher-income64%47 pp gap