The top reported proficiency rate is 36% in English language arts. The lowest is 14% in Science.
Original Research by School Decision on Schmitt Elementary
Schmitt Elementary sits on Trask Avenue in Westminster, a mid-sized suburban city in western Orange County built largely on mid-century residential tracts and defined by the Little Saigon commercial corridor along Bolsa Avenue. The school serves kindergarten through fifth grade within the Westminster School District, a TK-8 district that feeds into Huntington Beach Union High School District for grades nine through twelve.
The student body is a small elementary in terms of enrollment for its grade band, and its demographics reflect the surrounding neighborhood closely. Hispanic students make up the clear majority, with Asian students representing a substantial second group and white students a small fraction. The share of students who qualify for free or reduced-price meals is very high, well above what you would typically find across Orange County districts, which signals concentrated economic need in the families Schmitt serves. Data on English learner rates and special education rates were not available in the records provided.
State assessment results from the 2024-25 school year are available for grades three through five on the CAASPP Smarter Balanced exams and the California Science Test. In English language arts, proficiency rates across the tested grades range from roughly a third of students meeting or exceeding standards in third grade, dropping noticeably by fifth grade. Math results follow a steeper downward pattern across grades, with fifth grade math proficiency particularly low. Science proficiency at fifth grade is also quite low. Taken together, the school's overall proficiency index places it in the bottom quartile relative to districts in Orange County, based on a comparison set of county districts. Only a single year of data is available, so it is not possible to assess whether scores are improving or declining. These are numbers a parent would want to discuss directly with the school, asking specifically about what interventions are in place for students who are not yet at grade level and how the school is tracking individual progress over time.
The Westminster School District has a program offering that stands apart in California and, reportedly, in the country. Publicly reported sources indicate that in 2024 the district, working jointly with Huntington Beach Union, completed what is described as the nation's first preschool-through-twelfth-grade Vietnamese-English bilingual pathway. Students can enter a Vietnamese Dual Language Immersion program as early as preschool at DeMille Elementary, continue through Warner Middle School, and now carry that 50/50 bilingual education into Westminster High School, with the California Seal of Biliteracy as a potential outcome. A parallel Spanish dual language track runs through Willmore School. Schmitt Elementary itself is not listed as a host site for either dual language academy, so families specifically seeking that pathway would enroll at the designated academy schools within the district. The district also adopted formal AI guidance policies in late 2024, establishing expectations for how emerging technology will be used in instruction.
The housing market around Schmitt tells a clear story about access. Home values in the ZIP code are well above the California statewide median and far above the national median, and rents have been climbing. The estimated monthly carrying cost of a home in this area, at current mortgage rates, is steep enough that the gap between renting and buying is large. Westminster is a largely built-out suburb, so new housing supply is constrained; the major growth story is the redevelopment of the former Westminster Mall into a mixed-use district called Bolsa Pacific, publicly reported as including substantial new residential units, retail, and open space, with demolition underway as of early 2026. Whether that adds meaningfully affordable units remains to be seen.
Westminster itself is car-oriented for daily life, with pedestrian activity concentrated in Little Saigon rather than spread across the city. The OC Public Libraries system serves the area, and Sigler Park houses a Family Resource Center with programs relevant to families with young children.
For a family zoned to Schmitt, the honest picture is a neighborhood school serving a high-need population where state test results are below the county midpoint in every subject, in a district that has built genuinely uncommon bilingual programming at other sites. Parents will want to look closely at what Schmitt specifically offers in terms of academic support structures and how students at different starting points are served.
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