The top reported proficiency rate is 24% in English language arts. The lowest is 21% in Math.
Original Research by School Decision on Lamont Elementary
Lamont Elementary serves kindergarten through third grade in an agricultural, heavily Spanish-speaking town in the southern San Joaquin Valley south of Bakersfield. The school sits in a place shaped by farm labor, where most residents rent their homes, median household income is well below state and national levels, and poverty is widespread. The enrollment reflects this: nearly all students are Hispanic or Latino, and a substantial majority qualify for free or reduced-price lunch.
The school's immediate context is Lamont itself, a small, flat CDP surrounded by farmland and warehouse operations, with a compact grid of ranch-style houses and a modest commercial spine along Main Street. The town has a Lamont Branch Library and park with a pool and courts, and residents connect to Bakersfield via local bus service. Population has been roughly flat or slowly declining at the CDP level, though community advocates argue the area is growing in ways official data may undercount. A significant recent housing development, Mountain View Village, brought forty affordable apartments to Main Street and was designed with sustainable transportation in mind. The area is served by the Lamont Elementary School District, which covers only K-8 grades; there is no high school within Lamont itself, and county and civic services are based in Bakersfield.
On the academic side, Lamont Elementary's proficiency in tested subjects and grades is low. In the most recent state testing available, proficiency rates in third-grade math and language arts both fell below where we typically see them in comparable schools. Within Kern County's districts, Lamont Elementary's overall proficiency index places it below the midpoint. Only one year of state assessment data was available, so the trajectory of performance over time cannot be read from this record. No chronic absenteeism or graduation rate figures appear in the data, both because the school serves only early elementary grades and because graduation rate would apply only to high schools.
The district has undertaken two substantive parent-facing changes in recent years. In February 2024, Lamont Elementary School District opened a network of Telehealth School Wellness Centers at all its schools, providing students daily access to primary and urgent care via virtual consultations on campus. For families in a rural area where a doctor visit often means losing work hours and traveling long distances, this addresses a real barrier. The district funded this through a California Community Schools Partnership Program grant and positioned it within a broader Family Resource and Learning Center, integrating health, family, and community supports into the schools themselves. The district also moved forward on construction of a new Lamont STEM Academy, a twenty-two-acre, six-building elementary campus designed to serve existing and projected enrollment.
The housing market in Lamont reflects the town's place at the rural and working end of the valley. Home values and rents are substantially below the state benchmark and well below Bakersfield's, making housing more accessible by cost, though the affordability gap between local wages and even modest home prices remains tight.
A parent or resident considering this school should understand it as an early-elementary entry point in a low-income, Spanish-dominant agricultural community with recent investments in student health access and campus infrastructure, but with academic proficiency that warrants direct conversation with the school about how reading and math support are structured, what the trajectory of student learning has been over a longer span, and what specific moves the school is making to strengthen instruction. The district's wellness center and community-schools orientation are real assets for families navigating rural geography and economic constraints. The school is small for its grade band, which may mean closer teacher-student relationships, though it also limits the diversity of program offerings typical of larger elementary schools.
See more original research from School Decision →