The top reported proficiency rate is 55% in English language arts. The lowest is 48% in Math.
Original Research by School Decision on Sunburst School
Sunburst School is a public elementary school in Layton, Utah, serving students from pre-kindergarten through sixth grade. It is part of Davis District, the large school system covering much of Davis County. The school sits in the western part of Layton, near the community’s residential subdivisions and not far from the commercial corridors that define much of the city’s landscape.
Layton itself is the most populous city in Davis County and has grown steadily for decades, driven by the nearby Hill Air Force Base, a dominant employer and the largest single-site employer in the state. The city blends suburban neighborhoods with a significant retail and hospitality sector, including a major mall, a conference center, and a stretch of national chain restaurants. Families moving into the area often do so because of the employment base and the relative proximity to both Ogden and Salt Lake City, connected by Interstate 15 and FrontRunner commuter rail. Housing values in the school’s ZIP code are above the national median, and rents have held steady, making this a moderately expensive part of the Wasatch Front for a family to enter.
Sunburst School has an enrollment that is large for an elementary school. The student body is predominantly white, with a Hispanic population that represents the next largest group, and smaller shares of students who are Asian, Black, Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander, or of two or more races. A modest share of students qualifies for free or reduced-price lunch, which is lower than what many Utah elementary schools report. The school’s demographic profile is less diverse than the statewide public school average, and families considering the school should note that the available data does not include counts of students with disabilities or English learners, so it is not possible to get a full picture of special-population support from the public record.
On state assessments, Sunburst’s results sit above the middle of the pack among schools in Davis County. In math, a majority of students scored at or above the proficient level on the RISE exam. In English language arts and science, just over half of students reached that same bar, with the science result matching the ELA result. These are solid proficiency rates for an elementary school in the district, though not among the highest in the county. The school’s overall proficiency index places it above the median of the county’s districts. There is no multi-year trend data available, so it is not clear whether these results represent a stable pattern, an improvement, or a decline.
Because Sunburst is a pre-K through sixth grade school, there is no high school graduation rate to report. The school also has no public data on chronic absenteeism, discipline, staffing ratios, or course access. The absence of these fields does not necessarily indicate a problem—elementary schools typically have fewer publicly tracked metrics than secondary schools—but it does mean a parent would need to ask the school or district directly for information on class sizes, teacher experience, and school climate.
Davis District has made two recent changes that affect families looking at Sunburst. The first is the opening of Farmington High School in 2022, which reshuffled feeder patterns in the Farmington and Kaysville areas. Layton families are less directly affected by that shift, though the broader district growth is relevant. The second is Utah’s statewide expansion of optional full-day kindergarten, which began in the 2023-24 school year and is available at Sunburst. That gives incoming kindergarten families a free full-day option, a meaningful consideration when comparing schools.
For a family considering Sunburst, the key takeaway is straightforward. This is a large, suburban elementary school with academic results that are solid and slightly above the county median, set in a growing city anchored by a major military base and a healthy retail economy. Housing is expensive relative to the national median, and the student population is not highly diverse but is not monolithic either. The school does not publish certain data that some parents may want to see—discipline rates, staffing details, English learner support—so a direct visit or conversation with the principal would be the best way to fill in those blanks. For a family that values a stable, mid-sized-to-large elementary with decent test scores and a full-day kindergarten option, Sunburst fits that description.
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