The top reported proficiency rate is 26% in English language arts. The lowest is 8% in Science.
Original Research by School Decision on Randall Pepper Elementary
Randall Pepper Elementary is a small urban elementary school in Fontana serving kindergarten through fifth grade. The school sits in a densely working-class neighborhood of the city, the Inland Empire's largest. Nearly all of its students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, and its enrollment is overwhelmingly Hispanic, with a small representation of Black and white students and very few Asian students or students from other backgrounds.
State assessment data from the most recent year show proficiency in math and English language arts running well below what California schools typically achieve. In English language arts across third, fourth, and fifth grades, less than a third of students demonstrated proficiency. Math proficiency was notably lower, with fifth-grade students reaching proficiency at a single-digit rate. Science testing, administered only in fifth grade, also showed very low proficiency. These results place the school in the bottom quartile for overall proficiency when compared to other districts in San Bernardino County.
The school building itself is mid-sized for an elementary serving these grades, with roughly balanced enrollment across kindergarten through fourth grade and a slightly larger fifth-grade cohort. Kindergarten enrollment is substantial, suggesting the school draws families with very young children from its attendance zone.
Fontana, the city where Randall Pepper is located, is a working logistics and industrial hub on the Inland Empire's edge, anchored by warehousing, manufacturing, and distribution businesses along the I-10 and I-15 corridors. It is predominantly car-oriented and suburban. The city's median age is young, the household composition is heavily family-focused, and the population is diverse and growing. Housing in the area has been appreciating, with median home values in the neighborhood of what they were statewide several years ago, and rental costs are substantial relative to local household income. A school building in Fontana would serve families whose primary connections are jobs in logistics, retail, healthcare, or public services, many of whom work shifts or long commutes.
The parent district, Fontana Unified, is a large urban district with about 45 schools across the city serving all grades from kindergarten through adult education. In November 2024, voters approved a major new school facilities bond—the district's first in many years—funding classroom renovation, expanded career and technical education in robotics, coding, medical assistance, and construction, upgraded STEAM labs, accessibility improvements, and infrastructure repairs. That bond will carry property tax implications for the families in the zone.
At Randall Pepper, a parent should understand that recent state test results show students struggling significantly with grade-level mathematics and reading. The school's demographics reflect a low-income, predominantly Latino student body in a working-class city. The strength of the district's new investment in facilities and career pathways may eventually benefit the school, but the current performance data suggest students would benefit from close attention to instructional intensity in core academics. A parent might want to ask the school directly how it is working to address the gap between state proficiency expectations and current results, what support structures exist for students reading and computing below grade level, and how any additional district resources from the recent bond will reach this school's classrooms.
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