Pacific Union Elementary, Arcata CA

Original Research by School Decision on Pacific Union Elementary

Pacific Union Elementary sits on Janes Road in Arcata, a small college town on California's North Coast where Cal Poly Humboldt shapes much of the community's character. The school serves kindergarten through eighth grade, meaning a child can spend nine years here before moving on to high school. Enrollment is in the mid-hundreds, which is a moderate size for a K-8 school. A majority of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, reflecting a substantial economically disadvantaged population. The student body is majority white, with Hispanic students making up roughly a quarter of enrollment, and smaller shares of students who are American Indian or Alaska Native, multiracial, and Black. Data on English learners and students with IEPs were not available in what was provided.

On the 2024-25 California Smarter Balanced assessments, the school's overall proficiency across tested subjects and grades sits above the midpoint among districts in Humboldt County, placing it in a reasonably competitive position regionally. The picture within that summary varies by subject and grade. In English language arts, proficiency in the elementary grades runs in the low-to-mid forties range, then climbs noticeably in the middle grades, where scores in sixth through eighth grade reach into the mid-to-upper fifties. Math tells a more uneven story. Third grade is the relative high point, while fourth and fifth grade scores drop considerably. Sixth grade rebounds to roughly three in five students meeting standard, then falls back in seventh and eighth. Science proficiency in the tested grades sits around four in ten students. A parent who cares closely about math preparation from fourth grade onward may want to ask the school directly about how it supports students through that dip. Multi-year trend data was not available, so it is not possible to say whether these results represent improvement, decline, or stability. There is no graduation rate because the school does not serve high school grades.

Arcata itself is walkable and publicly described as bike-friendly, with the Cal Poly Humboldt campus positioned on a hillside above town overlooking Humboldt Bay and the redwood forest. The university is the dominant employer in the immediate area, with Eureka a short drive to the south providing additional regional employment. The housing market here is priced well below the California state average but meaningfully above the national median, and values have dipped slightly in the past year. Rents, by contrast, have edged upward and sit in a range that may be more accessible than ownership for many families, though renters here spend a relatively modest share of income on housing compared to many California markets.

District-level information on strategic priorities, curriculum choices, or recent programmatic changes was searched but could not be confirmed before research budget was exhausted, so that context is left out rather than guessed at. Program offerings at the school were also not available in the data provided.

What Pacific Union Elementary offers is a K-8 path in a small, environmentally aware university town, with literacy and middle-grades ELA results that compare reasonably well within Humboldt County and math outcomes that show some unevenness across grade levels worth a closer conversation with the school.

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Academic performance

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

Math

Grade 342%

School 42% · District 42%

▼ 1 pts below state median · ▲ 2 pts above county median

Grade 429%

School 29% · District 29%

▼ 8 pts below state median · ▼ 7 pts below county median

Grade 528%

School 28% · District 28%

▼ 3 pts below state median · ▼ 1 pts below county median

Grade 660%

School 60% · District 60%

▲ 29 pts above state median · ▲ 36 pts above county median

Grade 739%

School 39% · District 39%

▲ 9 pts above state median · ▲ 8 pts above county median

Grade 832%

School 32% · District 32%

▲ 4 pts above state median · ▲ 2 pts above county median

English language arts

Grade 331%

School 31% · District 31%

▼ 9 pts below state median · ▼ 4 pts below county median

Grade 441%

School 41% · District 41%

▼ 1 pts below state median · ▲ 8 pts above county median

Grade 545%

School 45% · District 45%

▼ 1 pts below state median · ▲ 1 pts above county median

Grade 658%

School 58% · District 58%

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

Grade 758%

School 58% · District 58%

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

Grade 855%

School 55% · District 55%

▲ 11 pts above state median · ▲ 9 pts above county median

Science

Grade 540%

School 40% · District 40%

▲ 12 pts above state median · ▲ 3 pts above county median

Grade 840%

School 40% · District 40%

▲ 14 pts above state median · ▲ 8 pts above county median

Social studies

Grade 862%

School 62% · District 62%

▲ 13 pts above state median · ▲ 18 pts above county median

This schoolPacific Union Elementary, 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-income30%Higher-income33%3 pp gap

Grade 4Lower-income21%Higher-income68%48 pp gap

Grade 5Lower-income42%Higher-income48%6 pp gap

Grade 6Lower-income43%Higher-income72%29 pp gap

Grade 7Lower-income45%Higher-income69%23 pp gap

Grade 8Lower-income38%Higher-income69%32 pp gap

Mathematics

Grade 3Lower-income37%Higher-income53%17 pp gap

Grade 4Lower-income17%Higher-income46%28 pp gap

Grade 5Lower-income25%Higher-income30%5 pp gap

Grade 6Lower-income43%Higher-income75%32 pp gap

Grade 7Lower-income32%Higher-income46%13 pp gap

Grade 8Lower-income21%Higher-income41%21 pp gap