Esplanade Elementary, Orange CA - Test Scores & Data

Original Research by School Decision on Esplanade Elementary

Esplanade Elementary serves grades kindergarten through sixth in Orange, a mid-sized suburban city in central Orange County built around Old Towne, a pedestrian historic district, with the remainder of the city organized as typical Southern California single-family neighborhoods. The school enrolls a small population for its grade band, nearly all from low-income households, and students are overwhelmingly Hispanic; more than half speak a language other than English at home, though the exact count was not available.

The school's academic results show persistent weakness across tested subjects and grades. In English language arts, proficiency ranges from around one quarter of students in grades three and five to nearly three fifths in grade four, with overall proficiency in the mid-thirtieth percentile range. Mathematics proficiency is considerably lower, clustering in the single digits through low forties by grade; overall, about one quarter of students demonstrated proficiency. Science testing in grade five, the only year science is tested, shows proficiency near ten percent. Across all tested subjects and grades, the school's proficiency sits in the bottom quartile compared to other schools in Orange County districts that serve similar grade spans. A parent may want to look into this further with the school to understand what support structures are in place and what interventions the school is pursuing to improve these outcomes.

The school is part of Orange Unified School District. The district has recently undergone significant governance change. In March 2024, voters recalled two trustees and flipped the board majority. The prior majority had pursued a culture-war agenda that included a policy requiring staff to notify parents if students requested different names or pronouns; in November 2024, the reconstituted board rescinded that policy. The board had also voted to ban the LGBTQ+ Pride flag and temporarily suspend books deemed age-inappropriate. These reversals represent a durable shift in district direction that families across the political spectrum consider when choosing a school.

The immediate community around the school is economically strained. The median home value in the area is substantially above the national benchmark, reflecting Orange County's regional housing market, while rents also rank high; the affordability ratio suggests housing costs consume more than half of median household income. Nearly all Esplanade students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, indicating concentrated economic hardship in the school's attendance zone.

The school building itself sits on North Esplanade Street in central Orange, close to downtown and the historic district. No information on specific academic or enrichment programs, staffing levels, attendance patterns, or classroom composition by program was available, so a family considering the school should ask directly about curriculum design, special education and English learner services, how instruction is differentiated, and what partnerships or community supports supplement classroom learning.

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Academic performance

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

Math

Grade 343%

School 43% · District 54% · ▼ 11 pts below district

even with state median · ▼ 13 pts below county median

Grade 434%

School 34% · District 54% · ▼ 20 pts below district

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

Grade 512%

School 12% · District 46% · ▼ 34 pts below district

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

Grade 617%

School 17% · District 50% · ▼ 32 pts below district

▼ 13 pts below state median · ▼ 29 pts below county median

English language arts

Grade 327%

School 27% · District 52% · ▼ 24 pts below district

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

Grade 459%

School 59% · District 59%

▲ 17 pts above state median · ▲ 4 pts above county median

Grade 524%

School 24% · District 61% · ▼ 37 pts below district

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

Grade 633%

School 33% · District 63% · ▼ 29 pts below district

▼ 11 pts below state median · ▼ 27 pts below county median

Science

Grade 510%

School 10% · District 42% · ▼ 32 pts below district

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

This schoolOrange 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.