The top reported proficiency rate is 22% in Math. The lowest is 9% in Science.
Original Research by School Decision on Phillips Elementary
Phillips Elementary sits on Shetler Avenue in Napa, serving kindergarten through fifth grade as a regular public school within Napa Valley Unified. The enrollment is a few hundred students, making it a mid-sized elementary school for its grade band.
The student body is heavily Hispanic, with nearly all enrolled students identifying as such. The share of students qualifying for free or reduced-price meals is very high, well above eight in ten, which means this is a high-poverty school by any standard measure. Data on English learner rates and students with IEPs was not available in what was provided.
State testing results from the 2024-25 school year, measured by California's CAASPP Smarter Balanced assessments, show proficiency levels that are low across all three tested grades in both English language arts and math. Roughly one in five students across third, fourth, and fifth grade reached the proficient threshold in reading and writing, with math running at a similar or slightly lower level in most grades. Science results from the fifth-grade CAST exam were lower still, with only a small fraction of fifth graders reaching proficiency. Positioned relative to districts in Napa County, Phillips falls below the midpoint in overall proficiency across tested subjects and grades. These are numbers a parent should look into further with the school, including what interventions and supports are in place for students reading and computing below grade level. Trend data to show whether performance is improving was not available; the current school year is the only data point on record in this set.
No information on program offerings, staffing ratios, attendance, or discipline was included in the data provided. The school's website would be the right place to ask about literacy supports, enrichment, and how the school is responding to these academic outcomes.
The broader district context matters here. Napa Valley Unified has undergone significant contraction in recent years, closing several schools and consolidating programs in response to declining enrollment and budget pressures. In early 2025, the district cut more than three dozen staff positions, including classroom teaching roles, and its own financial projections show deficits growing in coming years that could mean further reductions to course offerings and support staff. Families should weigh those structural pressures when thinking about program stability across the elementary years.
The Napa housing market is expensive by most national measures, sitting well above the California statewide median. Home values in the zip code have edged down slightly year over year, and the same is true of rents, though both remain at levels that consume a substantial portion of household income. The affordability math is challenging: estimated monthly mortgage costs are high, and rent as a share of local incomes runs above standard affordability thresholds. Voters in Napa narrowly approved a school facilities bond in November 2024, which funds repairs and upgrades including roofs, heating, cooling, asbestos removal, and classroom modernization across district campuses. That bond is paid through a property-tax increase layered on top of prior bond obligations, a direct and lasting cost for homeowners in the district.
Napa itself is a compact city at the southern end of Napa Valley, its economy built around wine, tourism, healthcare, and government. The downtown is walkable along the river with restaurants, cultural venues, and civic infrastructure, but most of the city and county are car-dependent. VINE Transit connects Napa to broader Bay Area transit. The city is in an active development cycle, with new mixed-use and affordable housing projects moving forward downtown and along major corridors.
Phillips is a school serving a predominantly low-income, predominantly Hispanic community in a district managing its way through contraction. The academic results, as reported, are well below state midpoints, and the district's financial trajectory introduces real uncertainty about staffing and support in the years ahead.
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