Clover Flat Elementary, Boulevard CA

Original Research by School Decision on Clover Flat Elementary

Clover Flat Elementary serves kindergarten through sixth grade in Boulevard, a remote rural census-designated place in the high desert of southeastern San Diego County near the Mexican border. The school enrolls a small body of students, with enrollment distributed across its grade span. The student population is economically disadvantaged; a substantial majority of families qualify for free or reduced-price lunch. The student body is diverse, with large shares of Hispanic and white students, a meaningful representation of multiracial students, and a smaller number of American Indian/Alaska Native, Asian, and Black students.

The school sits on Old Highway 80 in a setting that reflects its isolated location. Boulevard itself is a dispersed rural community with no walkable town center, most houses set on private roads that receive no public maintenance, roughly fifty miles west of El Centro and seventy miles east of downtown San Diego. The area's character is defined by open space, BLM land, and conservation areas rather than commercial infrastructure. Growth pressure, where it exists, comes from utility-scale renewable energy projects, not housing development.

The state testing data for 2024-25 shows weak proficiency results across both English language arts and mathematics. In third grade, about one in six students reached proficiency in math and a similar share in English language arts. By fourth grade, math proficiency dropped to a very low level, with essentially no students in fifth or sixth grade meeting the math standard. English language arts showed slightly more variation by grade, with higher proficiency in sixth grade than in the grades below it, but even the strongest result remained modest. A science assessment given in fifth grade showed similarly low proficiency. Data on prior years is not available for comparison, so it is not clear whether performance is stable, improving, or declining.

The school's overall proficiency index, computed across tested subjects and grades, places it in the bottom quartile among county school populations measured in this way. A parent may want to look into this further with the school, as this level of results warrants understanding more about the school's instructional approach, any support systems in place for students struggling with core academics, and what factors the school believes account for these outcomes.

No data was available on chronic absenteeism, staff credentials, or course breadth. Information on the share of students with an IEP or designated as English learners was also not reported. These are standard measures that can bear on how well a school can serve individual student needs, and a parent may wish to ask the school directly about staffing, special education services, English learner support, and school culture when evaluating it as a fit for their child.

Boulevard's housing market sits above state median values, and rental costs are meaningful relative to household income in the region. Mortgage financing rates are elevated by historical standards. Most residents in Boulevard own their homes; the area offers a rural, low-density lifestyle with strong open-space amenities in exchange for distance from urban services and a long commute to major employment centers.

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Academic performance

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

Math

Grade 318%

School 18% · District 19% · ▼ 1 pts below district

▼ 25 pts below state median · ▼ 31 pts below county median

Grade 45%

School 5% · District 19% · ▼ 15 pts below district

▼ 33 pts below state median · ▼ 38 pts below county median

Grade 50%

School 0% · District 9% · ▼ 9 pts below district

▼ 30 pts below state median · ▼ 35 pts below county median

Grade 60%

School 0% · District 12% · ▼ 12 pts below district

▼ 30 pts below state median · ▼ 35 pts below county median

English language arts

Grade 315%

School 15% · District 24% · ▼ 9 pts below district

▼ 26 pts below state median · ▼ 32 pts below county median

Grade 423%

School 23% · District 30% · ▼ 8 pts below district

▼ 19 pts below state median · ▼ 26 pts below county median

Grade 512%

School 12% · District 31% · ▼ 20 pts below district

▼ 34 pts below state median · ▼ 41 pts below county median

Grade 631%

School 31% · District 25% · ▲ 6 pts above district

▼ 13 pts below state median · ▼ 21 pts below county median

Science

Grade 512%

School 12% · District 19% · ▼ 8 pts below district

▼ 17 pts below state median · ▼ 23 pts below county median

Social studies

Grade 825%

School 25% · District 38% · ▼ 13 pts below district

▼ 24 pts below state median · ▼ 28 pts below county median

This schoolMountain Empire 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.

Proficiency by household income

English language arts

Grade 3Lower-income12%Higher-income18%6 pp gap

Mathematics

Grade 3Lower-income12%Higher-income24%12 pp gap