The top reported proficiency rate is 40% in English language arts. The lowest is 28% in Science.
Original Research by School Decision on Commonwealth Avenue Elementary
Commonwealth Avenue Elementary sits on South Commonwealth Avenue in the zip code that straddles the eastern edge of Koreatown, one of the most densely populated corridors in Los Angeles. The neighborhood is a vertical, around-the-clock place where apartment buildings stack above ground-floor businesses, and the school reflects that surroundings: its enrollment is moderate in size for a kindergarten-through-fifth-grade campus, and the student body is predominantly Hispanic, with a meaningful Asian population and smaller shares of white and Black students. A large majority of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, placing this firmly in the high-economic-need tier of LAUSD schools. Data on English learner rates and students with IEPs was not available in the records reviewed.
Academically, the picture is below the midpoint. On the California Assessment of Student Performance and Progress, scores across tested grades place the school below the median when set against districts in Los Angeles County, the comparison set available for this school. In English language arts, roughly two in five students across the tested grades reached the proficient or above standard, with fourth grade showing the strongest result and third grade the weakest. Math proficiency runs somewhat lower, clustered in the upper thirties across grades three through five. Fifth-grade science, measured by the California Science Test, came in below three in ten students reaching proficiency. Only one year of data was reported, so there is no trend line to indicate whether the school is moving up, holding steady, or declining. A parent wanting to understand what the school is doing to address these gaps would do well to ask directly about its instructional model and any targeted intervention programs.
Trend comparability is flagged as unknown in the state data, meaning year-to-year change calculations have not been confirmed as reliable, so prior-year comparisons were left out rather than stated as fact.
The school is a regular LAUSD neighborhood school, not a charter or magnet. That distinction matters for enrollment: attendance is based on residential assignment, not an application or lottery process. Commonwealth Avenue Elementary is part of Los Angeles Unified, the nation's second-largest school district. Families should be aware of several district-level changes publicly reported. LAUSD implemented a full-day cellphone ban in early 2025, covering all devices including smartwatches and earbuds throughout the school day including lunch, enforced at most campuses through lockable pouches. Voters also approved a major school facilities bond, publicly reported as the largest in LAUSD history, which will be repaid through property tax increases potentially lasting decades. Anyone weighing a home purchase in the area should factor that levy into long-term housing costs. Additionally, the district's Black Student Achievement Plan, which funds culturally responsive curriculum and added counseling staff at targeted campuses, was restructured in 2024 to remove race as the sole eligibility criterion and received a funding boost for the 2025-26 school year.
On housing, the area carries home values and rents that are far above the California statewide benchmark, itself already well above the national figure. The ratio of estimated monthly ownership costs to income and the share of income consumed by rent both point to a market that is genuinely difficult to enter, particularly for families on modest incomes. Home values in the local zip code have edged slightly downward year over year, and rents have been essentially flat, but neither movement changes the fundamental affordability constraint. The broader Los Angeles context is active rezoning and new construction, particularly downtown and in dense corridors, driven partly by the city's obligations under state housing law and partly by preparation for the 2026 World Cup and 2028 Olympics. Whether that translates to more accessible housing near this school over the medium term is uncertain.
For a family already living in the attendance zone, Commonwealth Avenue Elementary offers a neighborhood school embedded in one of the city's most diverse and transit-connected corridors. The academic results are real, and a parent should ask the school how it supports students who are not yet meeting grade-level standards, what intervention resources are available, and how staff turnover or stability looks on the ground, since those practical details are not captured in the data reviewed here.
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