Bay Park Elementary, San Diego CA

Original Research by School Decision on Bay Park Elementary

Bay Park Elementary is a regular public school serving kindergarten through fifth grade in the Kensington neighborhood of San Diego. It enrolls a community of about five hundred students, with roughly balanced representation across grades. The student body is predominantly white, with a meaningful Hispanic presence and smaller populations of Asian and multiracial students. About a quarter of the enrollment qualifies for free or reduced-price lunch.

On state testing, Bay Park's results reflect mixed performance by grade and subject. In English language arts, the school shows stronger proficiency in the upper elementary grades. Third grade reaches a solid level, while fifth grade posts notably stronger results. Fourth grade sits somewhat lower. In mathematics, performance trends downward as students advance through the grade levels. Third grade achieves a respectable proficiency rate, fourth grade dips somewhat lower, and fifth grade—the highest grade the school serves—shows a meaningful gap, with less than a majority of students meeting proficiency. Science proficiency in fifth grade runs at about half the class. Across all tested areas, Bay Park lands in the top quartile for overall proficiency among elementary schools in San Diego County, a position that reflects the school's stronger showing relative to peers despite uneven grade-level performance.

The school operates within San Diego Unified, a district that has made several policy shifts in recent years. Most notably, for secondary grades going forward, the district adopted standards-based grading that measures mastery against learning standards rather than averaging grades across the year, and separates academic grades from citizenship marks. For families with older children in the district, Ethnic Studies became a high school graduation requirement starting with the Class of 2024. The district also passed a major facilities bond in 2022 that commits to long-term school repairs, renovations, new construction, and technology upgrades, a commitment reflected in property taxes.

The neighborhood around Bay Park reflects San Diego County's housing market: median home values are substantial, and rental costs are considerably high relative to income. A mortgage on a typical home in the area would command a payment well above the cost of renting comparable space. This is an established residential area where housing stability and access depend on solid household income or long tenure. The broader labor market in the region shows a moderate unemployment rate, and median household income for the county is solidly middle-to-upper-middle range.

Data on English learner or special education enrollment was not available, so a parent may want to contact the school directly about services and supports for students with those needs. The school's testing data covers only recent assessment results, so longer-term trends are not visible in the available information. Bay Park serves a neighborhood community of moderate size within a large urban district, presenting a traditional elementary school pathway in a well-resourced but expensive part of San Diego.

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Academic performance

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

Math

Grade 371%

School 71% · District 55% · ▲ 15 pts above district

▲ 28 pts above state median · ▲ 22 pts above county median

Grade 468%

School 68% · District 50% · ▲ 17 pts above district

▲ 30 pts above state median · ▲ 25 pts above county median

Grade 554%

School 54% · District 45% · ▲ 9 pts above district

▲ 23 pts above state median · ▲ 19 pts above county median

English language arts

Grade 368%

School 68% · District 53% · ▲ 16 pts above district

▲ 28 pts above state median · ▲ 22 pts above county median

Grade 465%

School 65% · District 54% · ▲ 11 pts above district

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

Grade 572%

School 72% · District 58% · ▲ 15 pts above district

▲ 27 pts above state median · ▲ 19 pts above county median

Science

Grade 550%

School 50% · District 42% · ▲ 9 pts above district

▲ 22 pts above state median · ▲ 16 pts above county median

This schoolSan Diego 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.

Proficiency by household income

English language arts

Grade 3Lower-income60%Higher-income71%11 pp gap

Grade 4Lower-income45%Higher-income76%31 pp gap

Grade 5Lower-income52%Higher-income79%27 pp gap

Mathematics

Grade 3Lower-income65%Higher-income73%8 pp gap

Grade 4Lower-income41%Higher-income82%40 pp gap

Grade 5Lower-income43%Higher-income58%15 pp gap