The top reported proficiency rate is 79% in Math. The lowest is 70% in Science.
Original Research by School Decision on Madera Elementary
Madera Elementary sits on Madera Drive in El Cerrito, a small inner East Bay city that runs from flat residential streets near San Pablo Avenue up into hillside neighborhoods with Bay views. The school serves kindergarten through sixth grade within West Contra Costa Unified, a large district that also covers Richmond, Pinole, San Pablo, and several other communities. El Cerrito itself is quiet and transit-connected, organized around two BART stations and the San Pablo Avenue corridor rather than any single downtown. The Ohlone Greenway, a linear park running alongside the BART tracks, is a defining civic feature. The city is actively adding housing along San Pablo Avenue under a transit-oriented development plan and received a state designation as a prohousing community, so the neighborhood around the school is in a period of measured growth.
The school draws a genuinely mixed student body. White students make up the largest share, followed by students of two or more races, Asian students, and Hispanic students, with smaller numbers of Black and Pacific Islander students. That demographic spread is broader than many Bay Area elementary schools. The share of students qualifying for free or reduced-price lunch is modest relative to much of the district, suggesting a relatively lower-poverty population. Data on English learners and students with IEPs was not available in what was reported to us.
On the California assessments, Madera performs well. Across the tested grades, math proficiency runs from the low seventies to the low eighties depending on grade level, and English Language Arts proficiency runs from the low seventies to the low eighties as well. Fifth-grade science proficiency sits in a similar range. Taken together, the school's overall proficiency index places it in the top quartile relative to districts in Contra Costa County, a strong position. Only one year of data was available, so trend direction cannot be assessed.
Graduation rate does not apply here: Madera serves only elementary grades, so no high school outcome data exists for the school itself.
The district context is worth understanding directly. West Contra Costa Unified ended its first-ever teachers strike in late 2025 with a two-year contract that includes meaningful pay increases and new employer-paid family health benefits. Publicly reported coverage indicates the settlement, layered onto an existing budget deficit, has pushed the district toward a significant fiscal gap and potential insolvency, with proposed responses that include laying off non-teaching staff, increasing class sizes, eliminating some programs, merging middle schools, and converting several K-8 schools to elementary-only configurations. Whether any of those changes directly touch Madera was not specified in available reporting, but a parent would be well-served to ask the school and district directly about how budget decisions might affect staffing levels and programs in the coming school years.
On instruction, the district has publicly moved toward explicit phonics and the science of reading at the elementary level, introducing a supplemental phonics program across all elementary schools and reevaluating the core reading curriculum it had used for years. That shift in how reading is taught will affect Madera students, and families curious about the specific implementation at this school should ask.
Housing in the zip code is priced well above both the California median and the national median. Rents are also elevated, with the rent-to-income ratio running at a level that exceeds common affordability thresholds. Home values have edged slightly downward year-over-year while rents have ticked up modestly. For families weighing the area, the housing cost is a real part of the picture.
Program offerings for Madera were not available in the data provided, so we cannot speak to music, enrichment, after-school, or specific academic programs beyond what the assessments reflect. That is a gap worth filling by contacting the school.
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