Marvin Elementary, San Diego CA - Test Scores & Data

Original Research by School Decision on Marvin Elementary

Marvin Elementary serves kindergarten through fifth grade in a residential area of San Diego, with an enrollment that spans the full grade range, including a robust kindergarten class. The school's student composition is diverse: roughly half the enrollment identifies as white, with meaningful shares of Hispanic, multiracial, and Asian students, and smaller populations of Black students and students of other backgrounds. About a quarter of the enrollment qualifies for free or reduced-price lunch, suggesting the school sits in a mixed-income area rather than a high-poverty zone.

The school's most recent state assessment results, from spring 2025, show solid performance in English language arts across grades three through five, with proficiency clustering in the upper seventies across those grades. In math, third grade performs very strongly, but proficiency drops into the upper sixties for grades four and five, a pattern a parent might want to explore directly with the school to understand whether it reflects curriculum progression, assessment difficulty, or other factors. Fifth-grade science shows proficiency in the low sixties. Across all tested subjects and grades, Marvin's overall proficiency index places it in the top quartile among schools in San Diego County, a meaningful position that reflects consistent strength rather than uneven peaks.

The school sits in the 92120 ZIP code in San Diego, an area where housing values are substantial and rents reflect Southern California's cost of living. Median home values in that ZIP code are well above the state benchmark, and monthly rent for a typical unit runs several thousand dollars. This pricing suggests the school's immediate surroundings are affluent or upper-middle-class neighborhoods, though the school's student enrollment and free-lunch rate indicate the catchment draws from a broader economic range than the immediate neighborhood alone.

Marvin is a regular public school within San Diego Unified, which has adopted several district-wide changes families should understand. The district implemented a standards-based grading system that evaluates students on mastery of standards rather than point averages, removes non-academic factors like late work from academic grades (placing them in a separate citizenship grade), and allows reassessment opportunities. This pedagogy shift began in secondary grades but reflects the district's overall direction. The district also approved a major facilities bond in 2022 that commits property tax capacity toward repairs, renovations, new construction, security, and technology over time.

Data on special populations—English learner counts and students with IEPs—was not provided, so a parent seeking to understand the school's support for students with disabilities or multilingual learners should ask the school directly. Similarly, specific information on staffing, attendance, or discipline was not available in the data. The school's website, if one is maintained, would be the next source to explore for program details, class sizes, and school culture.

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Academic performance

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

Math

Grade 393%

School 93% · District 55% · ▲ 38 pts above district

▲ 50 pts above state median · ▲ 45 pts above county median

Grade 468%

School 68% · District 50% · ▲ 18 pts above district

▲ 30 pts above state median · ▲ 26 pts above county median

Grade 570%

School 70% · District 45% · ▲ 25 pts above district

▲ 39 pts above state median · ▲ 35 pts above county median

English language arts

Grade 379%

School 79% · District 53% · ▲ 26 pts above district

▲ 38 pts above state median · ▲ 32 pts above county median

Grade 478%

School 78% · District 54% · ▲ 24 pts above district

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

Grade 579%

School 79% · District 58% · ▲ 21 pts above district

▲ 34 pts above state median · ▲ 26 pts above county median

Science

Grade 563%

School 63% · District 42% · ▲ 21 pts above district

▲ 35 pts above state median · ▲ 28 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-income87%Higher-income76%10 pp gap

Grade 4Lower-income60%Higher-income88%28 pp gap

Grade 5Lower-income69%Higher-income83%14 pp gap

Mathematics

Grade 3Lower-income80%Higher-income96%16 pp gap

Grade 4Lower-income47%Higher-income80%34 pp gap

Grade 5Lower-income58%Higher-income75%17 pp gap