Arellanes Junior High

Set in Santa Maria, California, Arellanes Junior High is a reasonably sized middle school, run under Santa Maria-Bonita. It educates 668 students across grades 7 through 8.

Within Santa Maria-Bonita, which oversees 21 schools and 17,408 students, Arellanes Junior High is one campus in the system.

On demographics, Arellanes Junior High shows that the student body is overwhelmingly Hispanic (94%). The remainder breaks down as 3% White, 2% Asian. By comparison, Santa Barbara County as a whole is about 48% Hispanic, so the school skews noticeably more Hispanic than its surroundings.

On the income-and-resources front, Staff filings list 37 full-time-equivalent teachers, which works out to roughly 18.2:1 students per teacher. Statewide, the average ratio sits near 20.7:1, putting Arellanes Junior High tighter than the state norm the norm. Around 93% of the student body qualifies for free or reduced-price meals, a commonly cited indicator of low-income enrollment. By comparison, Santa Barbara County runs at roughly 68%, so the school's eligibility rate is meaningfully above the surrounding baseline.

With demographic context factored in, Arellanes Junior High performs roughly as the BeatsExpectations model predicts for a school with this FRL share. The predicted value is around 24.0%, the actual is 18.2%, a residual of -5.8 points.

In the broader community, the surrounding county (Santa Barbara County) reports that median household earnings sit near $98,161, roughly 37% of adults have completed at least a four-year degree, and census figures put the poverty rate at about 9%. In all, Santa Barbara County runs 129 public schools (combined enrollment of about 66,191 students), of which Arellanes Junior High is one.

Arellanes (Don Juan Bautista) Elementary is the nearest neighboring public school, about 0.0 miles from this campus. Counting just inside five miles, 8 other public schools cluster around Arellanes Junior High. Among the 9 schools in that immediate cluster with test data (this one included), Arellanes Junior High ranks 8th on composite proficiency, below the local average of 36.7%.

The campus sits in a residential setting.

Trend over the last 7 years. Arellanes Junior High's enrollment has expanded 4% since 2018, when it stood at 642 (now 668). Class-load math has fell: from 21.1:1 in 2018 to 18.2:1 in 2025.

Within the allk12 community for this school, recent activity here tends to focus on sports schedules, lunch menu changes, and school spirit week. Posting is open to anyone connected to the school.