Original Research by School Decision on Ernest Kimme Charter Academy
Ernest Kimme Charter Academy serves grades seven through twelve as a regular charter school in Vacaville, a mid-sized city on the I-80 corridor between San Francisco and Sacramento. The school enrolls a small student body, with notably high enrollment concentration in the upper grades, especially grade twelve. Nearly half the student body is Hispanic, and a substantial share of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, reflecting the student composition of many charter schools that draw from lower-income households.
The most striking feature of this school's data is the proficiency profile. On the 2024-25 state assessments, English language arts proficiency stood at just over one in ten students. In mathematics, no students met proficiency. In science, proficiency reached about one in nine. These are among the lowest results available in the available data, and a parent considering this school should look into this performance directly with the school's leadership to understand what is driving these results, what specific supports or interventions the school is implementing, and what the school's trajectory looks like going forward.
No other state testing data, graduation rates, attendance rates, special education enrollment, or English learner counts are available in the data, so it is not possible to characterize overall academic progress, completion outcomes, or the prevalence of students with disabilities or language needs. The school's website was not provided, so program-specific information, pedagogy, curriculum focus, or extracurricular offerings cannot be described here.
Vacaville itself is a city anchored by biotech and pharmaceutical manufacturing, healthcare, retail, and logistics, with major employers including Genentech, Kaiser Permanente, NorthBay Healthcare, and retailers like Walmart and Home Depot. The city is in active growth, with the Lagoon Valley conservation community under construction and large new residential and employment zones being planned. Downtown Vacaville has a walkable, pedestrian-scaled Main Street with restaurants, shops, and cultural facilities clustered around Town Square, though much of the broader city is organized around freeway access and commercial hubs.
In Solano County as a whole, the comparison measures that might position this school relative to other districts in the county—overall proficiency index, four-year graduation rate, and chronic absenteeism rate—are not applicable, as those figures are missing for the school. This prevents a clear comparison.
Housing costs in the Vacaville zip code have stabilized recently but remain elevated relative to national benchmarks; median home values are above the state average, and monthly rent-to-income ratios suggest housing is a significant household expense for the area. Families moving into the district should be aware of the two consecutive failures of school bond measures (Measure Q in 2022 and Measure E in 2024), which means aging school facilities remain unmodernized and planned new construction, including a middle school, is on hold. The district is simultaneously absorbing growth from the introduction of transitional kindergarten and broader enrollment increases, placing pressure on classroom space and infrastructure.
See more original research from School Decision →