The top reported proficiency rate is 31% in English language arts. The lowest is 21% in Science.
Original Research by School Decision on Cordua Elementary
Cordua Elementary is a small public school serving kindergarten through fifth grade on Highway 20 in Marysville, part of the Marysville Joint Unified School District in Yuba County. Its enrollment is quite small for a K-5 school, spread across six grade levels with particularly thin cohorts in the upper grades. That small size shapes everything from classroom dynamics to how test results should be read, since proficiency rates derived from a handful of students in any given grade can shift substantially from year to year.
On California's CAASPP assessments, Cordua's results are low. Across third through fifth grade in both English language arts and math, most tested students are not reaching proficiency. Reading and writing results are somewhat stronger than math results, but both subjects sit well below state averages. Science scores at fifth grade follow a similar pattern. Taken together, the school's overall proficiency index places it below the midpoint among the districts in Yuba County, relative to districts in that county comparison set. Because only a single year of data is available in the payload, trend information does not exist yet, so it is not possible to say whether scores are improving, holding steady, or declining. A parent would do well to ask the school directly about what reading and math interventions are in place and how they track individual student progress.
More than half the student body qualifies for free or reduced-price lunch, pointing to a community with meaningful economic pressure. The school's demographic composition is predominantly white, with a substantial Hispanic share and a small number of students of two or more races. Data on English learner enrollment and special education participation were not available in the data provided.
The school sits within the Marysville Joint Unified School District, which publicly reported in 2024 that a proposed bond measure, Measure S, was defeated by voters. That bond would have funded a new middle school in south Yuba County and facility renovations across the district. Its defeat leaves aging infrastructure questions unresolved and the planned middle school unfunded. Families thinking about the longer arc of a child's education in this district, from elementary through middle school, may want to ask about current facility conditions and how the district is managing capacity without that capital.
Marysville itself is a small, historically layered city at the junction of the Feather and Yuba Rivers, roughly an hour north of Sacramento. The downtown carries a dense collection of Gold Rush-era commercial buildings and a genuine walkable grid anchored by Ellis Lake, a park at the city's center with a walking loop, fishing, and picnic areas. The main highway corridor through town is congested and slow-moving, a practical reality for daily commuters. Major employers in the area include Adventist Health/Rideout, Yuba County government, and nearby Beale Air Force Base, with agriculture also providing seasonal work. The city is pursuing its first comprehensive General Plan update in decades, with a focus on downtown infill and affordable multifamily housing rather than outward expansion, since the city's levee boundaries constrain sprawl. Publicly reported projections suggest downtown will add a meaningful number of new apartment units over the next several years.
Home values in the zip code sit well below the California statewide benchmark, making the area considerably more accessible for buyers than most of the state, though mortgage costs at current rates remain a real household consideration. Rents are modest by California standards, with rent-to-income ratios that compare favorably to coastal markets.
For a family evaluating Cordua specifically, the enrollment is very small, which can mean close teacher-student relationships and a tight-knit school community, but it also means fewer peer groupings and limited program breadth. The academic proficiency data is a clear soft spot, and parents would be well-served by a direct conversation with the school about how it supports students who are behind grade level and what its approach looks like for those who are at or above it.
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