Santa Rosa Charter School for the Arts, Santa Rosa CA

Original Research by School Decision on Santa Rosa Charter School for the Arts

Santa Rosa Charter School for the Arts sits on Humboldt Street in Santa Rosa, the county seat of Sonoma County, and serves students from kindergarten through eighth grade. As a charter school, it operates under its own governing structure rather than directly under the Santa Rosa Elementary district, though it is affiliated with that district for state purposes. The school's defining characteristic is in its name: arts integration is the organizing principle of the program, which makes it a specific and intentional choice rather than a general neighborhood school.

The enrollment is mid-sized for a K-8 school. The student body is majority white, with Hispanic students making up roughly a quarter of enrollment, and smaller shares of students identifying as multiracial, Black, or Asian. Just over a third of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, a share that falls below what you see at many Santa Rosa elementary campuses. Data on English learner enrollment and students with IEPs was not available in the provided information.

State testing results from the most recent year tell a mixed story. In English language arts, the school shows genuine grade-to-grade variation: fourth and fifth graders are proficient at a solid rate that sits in a reasonable range for a California school, and performance in those middle elementary years is the school's clearest academic strength on paper. Third and sixth grade ELA results are more moderate, and eighth grade ELA proficiency drops considerably. Math is the more pressing pattern to understand. Proficiency rates in the elementary grades are modest, and they decline sharply as students move into the middle grades, with eighth grade math proficiency falling to a very low level. Science results at fifth grade are reasonable, but eighth grade science proficiency is also quite low. Across all tested subjects and grades combined, the school places below the midpoint among districts in Sonoma County, based on the comparison set of county districts. A parent considering this school should ask the school directly about its math pathway and what academic supports are in place, particularly for students heading into the upper middle school grades.

No graduation rate applies here, since the school does not serve high school grades.

The surrounding city gives this school a particular kind of context. Santa Rosa is a real city with a functioning downtown anchored by Old Courthouse Square, a concentration of restaurants, a farmers market, and cultural venues including art galleries, and the school's Humboldt Street address puts it in the more walkable inner city. The SMART commuter rail has a downtown station, and Howarth Park, Spring Lake Regional Park, and Trione-Annadel State Park form an interconnected green corridor that residents can reach by foot from city neighborhoods. Major employers include the County of Sonoma, Kaiser Permanente, Providence Santa Rosa Memorial Hospital, Keysight Technologies, and Medtronic, giving the area a stable employment base anchored in health care and government.

Housing near the school is expensive by national standards and roughly in line with the California state median, with home values running well above the national benchmark. Recent year-over-year values have been essentially flat to slightly down. Rents are high relative to income. Publicly reported information indicates voters approved a general obligation bond for the Santa Rosa Elementary district in 2022, and property owners within the district boundaries carry that ongoing tax cost. A citizen group has also been pursuing a parcel tax ballot measure to address the district's budget crisis. Families buying in Santa Rosa should track both, as they would affect property tax bills for years.

That district context matters as a backdrop even for a charter school family, because it describes the broader fiscal and enrollment environment of elementary education in the city. The Santa Rosa Elementary district has been through significant consolidation, closing campuses and reducing teaching and counseling positions, and raising class sizes at its remaining schools. The charter school's independent governance means it is not directly subject to those specific changes, but families will want to ask the school about its own financial stability and staffing picture.

For a family that values arts integration as a genuine daily presence in school, and who wants a K-8 option with that focus in an urban Santa Rosa setting, this school offers something distinct. The academic results in the upper grades, especially in math and science, are soft enough that a parent would be well served by a direct conversation with the school about how those outcomes are being addressed.

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Academic performance

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

Math

Grade 332%

School 32% · District 33% · ▼ 1 pts below district

▼ 11 pts below state median · ▼ 11 pts below county median

Grade 450%

School 50% · District 26% · ▲ 24 pts above district

▲ 13 pts above state median · ▲ 12 pts above county median

Grade 534%

School 34% · District 21% · ▲ 14 pts above district

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

Grade 617%

School 17% · District 28% · ▼ 11 pts below district

▼ 13 pts below state median · ▼ 18 pts below county median

Grade 715%

School 15% · District 16% · ▼ 1 pts below district

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

Grade 85%

School 5% · District 11% · ▼ 6 pts below district

▼ 23 pts below state median · ▼ 25 pts below county median

English language arts

Grade 348%

School 48% · District 30% · ▲ 18 pts above district

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

Grade 460%

School 60% · District 29% · ▲ 30 pts above district

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

Grade 560%

School 60% · District 33% · ▲ 27 pts above district

▲ 15 pts above state median · ▲ 13 pts above county median

Grade 647%

School 47% · District 40% · ▲ 8 pts above district

▲ 3 pts above state median · ▼ 2 pts below county median

Grade 745%

School 45% · District 36% · ▲ 9 pts above district

even with state median · ▼ 1 pts below county median

Grade 826%

School 26% · District 27% · ▼ 1 pts below district

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

Science

Grade 543%

School 43% · District 24% · ▲ 19 pts above district

▲ 15 pts above state median · ▲ 11 pts above county median

Grade 813%

School 13% · District 12% · ▲ 1 pts above district

▼ 13 pts below state median · ▼ 15 pts below county median

Social studies

Grade 832%

School 32% · District 32%

▼ 17 pts below state median · ▼ 27 pts below county median

This schoolSanta Rosa Elementary, 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-income26%Higher-income64%38 pp gap

Grade 4Lower-income31%Higher-income77%46 pp gap

Grade 5Lower-income50%Higher-income71%21 pp gap

Grade 6Lower-income36%Higher-income57%21 pp gap

Grade 7Lower-income55%Higher-income35%20 pp gap

Grade 8Lower-income35%Higher-income18%17 pp gap

Mathematics

Grade 3Lower-income11%Higher-income48%38 pp gap

Grade 4Lower-income38%Higher-income58%20 pp gap

Grade 5Lower-income33%Higher-income35%2 pp gap

Grade 6Lower-income8%Higher-income25%17 pp gap

Grade 7Lower-income20%Higher-income10%10 pp gap

Grade 8Lower-income12%Higher-income0%12 pp gap