Lee Vining Elementary, Lee Vining CA

Original Research by School Decision on Lee Vining Elementary

Lee Vining Elementary serves kindergarten through eighth grade in a very small unincorporated community in Mono County, functioning as a gateway town to Yosemite's eastern entrance. The school's enrollment is small, with about a hundred students distributed across the grade span. Roughly half the student body qualifies for free or reduced-price lunch, and the enrollment is evenly split between Hispanic and white students.

In English language arts, the school shows a mixed profile across the middle grades. Grade five reaches a solid proficiency level, and grades seven and eight both exceed that mark. Grade six sits lower. Math performance is a steeper challenge. While grade seven reaches near the level of the stronger ELA grades, grades five, six, and eight all fall substantially below the same threshold, with grade six particularly low. The school's overall proficiency index in math sits well above the midpoint among Mono County's districts. In science, tested in grades five and eight, proficiency is modest. State assessment data for grades three and four in both math and ELA were suppressed due to small cohort size, a common feature of schools this size.

One year of tested data limits what can be said about trends. The school's overall proficiency across tested subjects and grades places it in the top quartile relative to other districts in Mono County. Because this is the school's first complete data release under the current assessment, a parent may want to look into further details with the school about the factors shaping performance in math, particularly in the middle grades.

Lee Vining itself is a small, tourism-dependent place centered on a short strip of businesses along Highway 395. The school sits on a campus at the north end of town alongside the high school and public library. Housing in the area is overwhelmingly single-family detached homes. Home values are below the state median but above the national median, and the mortgage market remains moderately constrained. The community is poised for potential growth; a proposed workforce housing development could roughly double the population, bringing demographic and enrollment shifts that would reshape school operations.

The Eastern Sierra Unified School District, which operates Lee Vining Elementary, covers a sparse, high-elevation region. No recent major district policy shifts or bond measures were found, though there is growing interest in dual-enrollment pathways with Cerro Coso Community College for high school students at both Lee Vining and Coleville campuses.

For families considering this school, the key facts are its small size, its rural setting with seasonal tourism traffic, its solid standing on state tests relative to county peers, and the reality that math proficiency trails ELA. The community and school operate in a tight-knit, resource-constrained context where growth is possible but infrastructure and housing remain limited.

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Academic performance

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

Math

Grade 539%

School 39% · District 19% · ▲ 19 pts above district

▲ 8 pts above state median

Grade 618%

School 18% · District 15% · ▲ 3 pts above district

▼ 12 pts below state median

Grade 742%

School 42% · District 34% · ▲ 7 pts above district

▲ 12 pts above state median

Grade 836%

School 36% · District 33% · ▲ 3 pts above district

▲ 9 pts above state median

English language arts

Grade 569%

School 69% · District 39% · ▲ 30 pts above district

▲ 24 pts above state median

Grade 655%

School 55% · District 58% · ▼ 3 pts below district

▲ 11 pts above state median

Grade 773%

School 73% · District 65% · ▲ 8 pts above district

▲ 27 pts above state median

Grade 855%

School 55% · District 56% · ▼ 1 pts below district

▲ 10 pts above state median

Science

Grade 546%

School 46% · District 28% · ▲ 18 pts above district

▲ 18 pts above state median

Grade 836%

School 36% · District 28% · ▲ 9 pts above district

▲ 11 pts above state median

This schoolEastern Sierra 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.