Bell Gardens Elementary

Bell Gardens Elementary is an elementary school of medium-sized scale in Bell Gardens, California, run under Montebello Unified, serveing 624 students in grades K through 5. That puts it 34% larger than the typical public school in California, which averages around 465 students.

Montebello Unified comprises 29 schools with combined enrollment of 19,149 students; Bell Gardens Elementary is among them.

For racial and ethnic makeup, Bell Gardens Elementary shows that nearly all students (98%) are Hispanic. That is considerably more Hispanic than the county at large, where the share is closer to 48%.

Looking at school resources, Bell Gardens Elementary records 31 full-time-equivalent teachers, putting the student-to-teacher ratio at about 20.4:1. The state averages around 22.3:1, so this campus is tighter than the state norm typical. Roughly 91% of students at Bell Gardens Elementary qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, often used as a Title I proxy. Set against Los Angeles County (around 70%), the school's rate is north of typical.

On a residual basis (actual vs predicted given the student mix), Bell Gardens Elementary performs roughly as the BeatsExpectations model predicts for a school with this FRL share. The predicted value is around 25.6%, the actual is 33.9%, a residual of +8.4 points.

In the broader community, Los Angeles County reports that the typical household earns roughly $90,112 per year, 36% of adults hold a bachelor's degree or higher, and roughly 10% of residents live below the federal poverty line. Bell Gardens Elementary is one of 2244 public schools in Los Angeles County (combined enrollment of about 1,265,907 students).

Park Avenue Elementary is the nearest neighboring public school, about 0.3 miles from this campus. 8 of the 8 nearest public schools sit inside a five-mile radius. On composite proficiency, Bell Gardens Elementary comes 1st of 7 in the immediate cluster, ahead of the nearby-schools average of 25.3%.

The school occupies a suburban site.

Five-year trend. Looking back 7 years, enrollment at Bell Gardens Elementary has edged down 38%, going from 1,010 students in 2018 to 624 in 2025. The student-to-teacher ratio narrowed from 26.6:1 in 2018 to 20.4:1 today.

On the community side, the page collects discussion, questions, and updates around enrollment questions, classroom assignments, and PTA news. Members of the school community can share what they know.