The top reported proficiency rate is 42% in English language arts. The lowest is 26% in Science.
Original Research by School Decision on Jefferson Elementary
Jefferson Elementary sits on Jefferson Street in Paramount, a densely built, working-class city in southeast Los Angeles County. The school serves kindergarten through fifth grade as a regular public school within Paramount Unified, and its student body reflects the community closely: the enrollment is a relatively compact elementary-sized group, the overwhelming majority of students are Hispanic, and nearly all qualify for free or reduced-price lunch. That economic profile is central to understanding what the school is and what it is working with.
State testing data from the 2024-25 school year is available for grades three through five. In English language arts, proficiency rates across those grades cluster in the low-to-mid forties, which places the school below the midpoint relative to districts in Los Angeles County. Math tells a more varied story: third graders show a stronger result, approaching the upper fifties in proficiency, but that rate drops meaningfully in fourth grade and falls further in fifth. Science, tested at fifth grade only via California's CAST assessment, comes in at roughly a quarter of students meeting proficiency. Taken together, the school's overall proficiency index lands below the median for the Los Angeles County comparison set. Only a single year of data is available, so trend direction cannot be assessed; a parent wondering whether results are improving, holding, or declining would want to ask the school directly.
Data on chronic absenteeism and special-education IEP rates was not reported in the information available here, both gaps worth raising with the school if those factors matter to your family. English learner rate data was also not provided, though given Paramount's demographics and the concentration of Hispanic families in the enrollment, the school likely serves a substantial number of English learners; again, the school can speak to that directly.
One development worth knowing about at the district level: Paramount Unified launched a Spanish Dual Language Immersion program in 2025-26, currently housed at two other elementary schools (Mark Keppel and Theodore Roosevelt), not at Jefferson. The program follows a 90-to-10 Spanish-to-English model starting in kindergarten and is designed to grow grade by grade toward the California Seal of Biliteracy. District-provided transportation is available for students whose home school is not one of those two sites. If a bilingual pathway is a priority, this is a live option within the district, though it requires a multi-year family commitment and a school transfer.
The district also passed a facilities bond in November 2024. Most of the campuses in Paramount Unified were built well over half a century ago, and the bond is directed at deteriorating infrastructure, roofs, plumbing, electrical systems, safety upgrades, ADA accessibility, and modernizing classrooms and career-training spaces. For homeowners, it also carries a lasting property-tax implication over the life of the bonds.
The housing market around Jefferson reflects Paramount's position as a relatively more affordable city in an expensive county. Home values here run meaningfully below the California statewide benchmark, though they sit well above the national median. Rents have edged upward recently. The rent-to-income ratio in this zip code is elevated, reflecting the broader affordability pressures facing working families in the region.
Paramount itself is a fully built-out suburban city, organized around commercial boulevards rather than a traditional downtown. Civic life centers on the LA County Paramount Library, which reopened in mid-2024 after a renovation, and a set of neighborhood parks. The city runs a fixed-route shuttle and dial-a-ride service, and Metro bus routes connect to nearby colleges. A small amount of new infill housing and retail development is underway in 2026, including an affordable-unit project and a planned public market converting a historic building. The community is heavily family-oriented and multi-generational.
For a family at Jefferson, the picture is a neighborhood school deeply rooted in Paramount's predominantly Latino, working-class community, with test results that are below the county midpoint and a math trajectory across the upper elementary grades that a parent may want to discuss further with the school to understand what support is in place.
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