Warner Middle, Westminster CA - Test Scores & Data

Original Research by School Decision on Warner Middle

Warner Middle serves students in the middle grades within Westminster School District, an Orange County community with a distinctive character shaped by a large and vibrant Vietnamese American population. The school sits in a largely built-out residential suburb where growth now centers on the redevelopment of the former Westminster Mall into a mixed-use district of homes, retail, and public space. For families considering Warner Middle, the school's defining feature is its place within the district's Vietnamese Dual Language Immersion pathway, a continuous bilingual program that now runs from preschool through high school. A student can enter at an elementary feeder school and continue a fifty-fifty Vietnamese-English bilingual track through Warner and into Westminster High School, earning language certification along the way.

The school enrolls students who are predominantly Asian and Hispanic, with a substantial share qualifying for free or reduced-price lunch. The student body reflects the economic and immigrant composition of the neighborhood. English learner enrollment data was not available in the materials provided, though the dual-language immersion pathway and the demographic makeup suggest a significant share of students are managing multilingual academic work. Special education enrollment figures were also not reported.

Academic performance reveals a mixed picture across subjects and grade levels. In English Language Arts, students show stronger performance in the upper grades, with proficiency rising from the sixth to the eighth grade. In mathematics, performance is lower overall, starting below middpoint in sixth grade and improving by eighth grade but remaining below strong. Science proficiency at the eighth grade sits notably lower than both ELA and math. The school's overall proficiency index places it below the midpoint among Orange County school districts. A parent may want to look into whether the school offers targeted math support, particularly in the lower-performing grade levels, and whether the dual-language immersion pathway includes structured supports for students who are simultaneously managing bilingual literacy and challenging academic content.

The school offers music instruction. Course access, staffing, attendance, and discipline information were not available in the provided materials. State testing data from prior years was not located, so trends over time could not be assessed.

Westminster as a place is a car-oriented suburb with quiet mid-century residential streets and a dense commercial district in Little Saigon, centered on Bolsa Avenue, which draws weekend pedestrian activity well beyond the resident base. Schools in the area are scattered across the city and run by multiple districts rather than clustered near a civic center. Warner Middle's enrollment is small-to-moderate for a middle school, with a fairly even distribution across the three grades. The neighborhood surrounding the school is residential, typical of Westminster's urban fabric. Housing values in the zip code are elevated for California, and rent-to-income burden suggests housing costs consume a meaningful share of family budgets for renters, reflecting broader regional affordability challenges.

The district's bilingual pathway is its most visible investment. The extension of Vietnamese Dual Language Immersion through high school in 2024, paired with new infant and preschool dual-language programs, signals a sustained institutional commitment to multilingual education. The district also adopted formal AI guidance policy in late 2024, establishing guardrails for how emerging classroom technology will be used and how academic integrity expectations will hold in an AI-present learning environment. These are lasting structural choices that shape what kind of education pathway a family is choosing when they enroll at Warner.

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Academic performance

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

Math

Grade 641%

School 41% · District 42% · ▼ 1 pts below district

▲ 10 pts above state median · ▼ 6 pts below county median

Grade 744%

School 44% · District 46% · ▼ 3 pts below district

▲ 13 pts above state median · ▼ 6 pts below county median

Grade 855%

School 55% · District 51% · ▲ 4 pts above district

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

English language arts

Grade 649%

School 49% · District 53% · ▼ 4 pts below district

▲ 5 pts above state median · ▼ 11 pts below county median

Grade 756%

School 56% · District 59% · ▼ 3 pts below district

▲ 10 pts above state median · ▼ 9 pts below county median

Grade 859%

School 59% · District 59% · ▼ 1 pts below district

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

Science

Grade 838%

School 38% · District 41% · ▼ 2 pts below district

▲ 13 pts above state median · ▼ 6 pts below county median

Social studies

Grade 860%

School 60% · District 53% · ▲ 7 pts above district

▲ 11 pts above state median · ▼ 7 pts below county median

This schoolWestminster, 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 6Lower-income47%Higher-income58%10 pp gap

Grade 7Lower-income53%Higher-income80%27 pp gap

Grade 8Lower-income55%Higher-income85%30 pp gap

Mathematics

Grade 6Lower-income38%Higher-income54%16 pp gap

Grade 7Lower-income42%Higher-income60%18 pp gap

Grade 8Lower-income52%Higher-income77%25 pp gap