Mckinley Elementary, Stockton CA

Original Research by School Decision on Mckinley Elementary

McKinley Elementary sits on West Ninth Street in Stockton, a large inland city in California's San Joaquin Valley that functions as both an agricultural processing hub and a distribution center with close logistics ties to the Bay Area and Sacramento. The school serves kindergarten through eighth grade within Stockton Unified, making it one of the district's K-8 campuses rather than a standalone elementary. Its enrollment is mid-sized for a school spanning that range of grades.

The student body is predominantly Hispanic, with smaller shares of Asian and Black students and very few white students. A large majority of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, reflecting the economic character of the surrounding neighborhood and of Stockton's south side more broadly. Data on English learner enrollment and students with IEPs were not available in this data set, so a parent interested in those support structures would want to ask the school directly.

Academic performance on California's CAASPP Smarter Balanced assessments, the state's standard measure, is low across both English Language Arts and math and across every tested grade from third through eighth. In ELA, proficiency rates sit in roughly the teens to low-to-mid twenties across grades, with fifth and eighth grades showing the relatively stronger results within that range. Math proficiency is lower still, running from the high single digits to the mid-teens depending on the grade, with eighth grade showing the weakest result of any tested cohort. Science results from the California CAST, available at fifth and eighth grade, follow a similar pattern. Measured against other districts in San Joaquin County, McKinley's overall proficiency index places in the bottom quartile of that comparison set. These are the reported results; a parent wondering whether the school is making progress over time should note that only a single year of data was available here, so no trend line can be drawn.

The district context matters for understanding what is happening instructionally. Stockton Unified publicly adopted SIPPS, a structured-literacy and phonics program, as its district-wide foundational reading approach for early grades, and has credited it with meaningful gains in K through second grade reading. That change is recent, and its effects would appear first in the lower grades rather than the tested grades that produce the CAASPP scores above. The district also adopted a 2024-2027 Local Control Accountability Plan with stated goals around academic achievement, students with disabilities, and outcomes for Black students, shaped by a district equity audit. Voters approved a general obligation bond measure in 2022, and the district issued its first tranche under that measure in 2025 for facility acquisitions and improvements. Starting in the 2025-26 school year, the district put a new cell phone limitation policy in place for the school day, consistent with a California requirement taking effect in 2026.

No information on program offerings at McKinley specifically was available in this data. A graduation rate does not apply here because the school does not serve high school grades.

The housing market immediately around McKinley, in the zip code serving this part of Stockton, shows home values well below the California state average, sitting closer to the national midpoint. Rents in the area are moderately priced relative to the state. Year-over-year home values in the zip have edged down slightly while rents have ticked up, a pattern consistent with Stockton's broader 2026 market description as normalizing after constrained supply. Stockton's relative affordability compared to the Bay Area continues to bring buyers and commuters into the region, and the city is adding affordable housing units downtown, including projects that delivered in 2025. For a family weighing housing cost alongside school choice, the neighborhood around McKinley offers access to Stockton at a lower price point than most of California.

For a family whose child would attend McKinley, the clearest picture from the available data is a school with low tested proficiency across grades, operating inside a district that has made visible curricular and policy changes in recent years. Whether those changes are reaching classrooms in ways the test scores do not yet reflect is a question worth raising with the school.

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Academic performance

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

Math

Grade 319%

School 19% · District 27% · ▼ 8 pts below district

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

Grade 415%

School 15% · District 21% · ▼ 6 pts below district

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

Grade 511%

School 11% · District 14% · ▼ 3 pts below district

▼ 20 pts below state median · ▼ 9 pts below county median

Grade 613%

School 13% · District 17% · ▼ 4 pts below district

▼ 17 pts below state median · ▼ 9 pts below county median

Grade 715%

School 15% · District 19% · ▼ 4 pts below district

▼ 15 pts below state median · ▼ 7 pts below county median

Grade 88%

School 8% · District 19% · ▼ 10 pts below district

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

English language arts

Grade 318%

School 18% · District 24% · ▼ 6 pts below district

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

Grade 411%

School 11% · District 24% · ▼ 13 pts below district

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

Grade 525%

School 25% · District 25%

▼ 20 pts below state median · ▼ 8 pts below county median

Grade 617%

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

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

Grade 720%

School 20% · District 31% · ▼ 11 pts below district

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

Grade 824%

School 24% · District 34% · ▼ 9 pts below district

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

Science

Grade 515%

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

▼ 14 pts below state median · ▼ 3 pts below county median

Grade 88%

School 8% · District 15% · ▼ 6 pts below district

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

Social studies

Grade 820%

School 20% · District 23% · ▼ 3 pts below district

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

This schoolStockton 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

Mathematics

Grade 3Lower-income18%Higher-income27%9 pp gap

Grade 4Lower-income14%Higher-income18%4 pp gap