Fairfax Elementary, San Bernardino CA

Original Research by School Decision on Fairfax Elementary

Fairfax Elementary serves kindergarten through sixth grade in San Bernardino. The school enrolls a small population. Nearly all students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, and the vast majority are Latino. The school is a regular public elementary in the San Bernardino City Unified School District, which operates under a strategic vision adopted in 2024 called Vision 2030: SBCUSD SHINES, centered on academics, college and career readiness, equity, and safe learning environments. The district's high schools operate on a Linked Learning model integrating college-prep academics with career and technical education, though this model does not directly touch elementary.

State testing results from the most recent assessment show academic proficiency well below state levels across both English language arts and math. In English language arts, results range across the grade band; fifth grade performs closest to mid-range, while sixth grade proficiency is low. In math, third and fourth grade proficiency sits in the low range, fifth grade performance rises to the mid-range, and sixth grade drops to very low proficiency. Science proficiency in fifth grade is also low. Overall proficiency at the school sits below the midpoint among the county's districts.

The school's small enrollment is spread across seven grades, with the largest classes in the upper elementary range and smaller classes in kindergarten and the mid-grades. Demographic composition is highly concentrated: the student body is predominantly Latino, with very small numbers of students from other racial or ethnic backgrounds. English learner status and special education identification data were not available. Chronic absenteeism data was not available, so patterns of attendance cannot be assessed from the data provided.

San Bernardino itself is a mixed urban landscape of residential and commercial areas. Neighborhoods range from renter-heavy downtown areas and urban apartment complexes to tree-lined mid-century residential districts and foothill communities. The downtown is the subject of ongoing redevelopment planning aimed at mixed-use, mixed-income infill. The broader economic context shows home values and rental costs moderate relative to state benchmarks. A parent may want to look into this further with the school to understand the academic supports, staffing, and interventions underway to address the proficiency gaps evident in the testing data, as well as to learn about the school's approach to serving the English learner population more broadly.

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Academic performance

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

Math

Grade 322%

School 22% · District 31% · ▼ 9 pts below district

▼ 21 pts below state median · ▼ 14 pts below county median

Grade 422%

School 22% · District 23% · ▼ 1 pts below district

▼ 16 pts below state median · ▼ 6 pts below county median

Grade 536%

School 36% · District 19% · ▲ 17 pts above district

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

Grade 616%

School 16% · District 24% · ▼ 8 pts below district

▼ 14 pts below state median · ▼ 6 pts below county median

English language arts

Grade 333%

School 33% · District 31% · ▲ 2 pts above district

▼ 7 pts below state median · even with county median

Grade 430%

School 30% · District 32% · ▼ 1 pts below district

▼ 12 pts below state median · ▼ 5 pts below county median

Grade 549%

School 49% · District 34% · ▲ 15 pts above district

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

Grade 622%

School 22% · District 38% · ▼ 16 pts below district

▼ 22 pts below state median · ▼ 17 pts below county median

Science

Grade 528%

School 28% · District 18% · ▲ 10 pts above district

even with state median · ▲ 6 pts above county median

This schoolSan Bernardino City 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.