Cahuilla Elementary

As a mid-sized elementary school in Palm Springs, California, Cahuilla Elementary instructs 399 students from grades K through 5, one of the schools within Palm Springs Unified.

Palm Springs Unified comprises 27 schools with combined enrollment of 20,007 students; Cahuilla Elementary is among them.

On the student-mix side, Cahuilla Elementary reports that the largest single group is Hispanic, at 71% of enrollment. The remainder looks like 11% White, 9% Black, 4% multiracial, 3% Asian. By comparison, Riverside County as a whole is about 51% Hispanic, so the school skews meaningfully more Hispanic than its surroundings.

On the resource side, On paper, Cahuilla Elementary has 21 full-time-equivalent teachers, translating to a class-load average of around 19.2:1. Statewide, the average ratio sits near 22.3:1, putting Cahuilla Elementary tighter than the state norm the norm. About 91% of enrolled students meet the income threshold for free or reduced-price lunch, a number frequently used as a low-income enrollment indicator. That share is higher than Riverside County's rate of about 74%.

With demographic context factored in, Cahuilla Elementary tracks the demographic baseline. The model predicts 25.0% given the school's FRL share; actual proficiency is 30.3%.

In the surrounding community, census data for Riverside County shows the typical household earns roughly $93,074 per year, roughly 26% of adults have completed at least a four-year degree, and the poverty rate sits near 8%. In all, Riverside County runs 543 public schools (combined enrollment of about 424,872 students), of which Cahuilla Elementary is one.

The closest other public school is Desert Learning Academy, roughly 1.1 miles away. 8 of the 8 nearest public schools sit inside a five-mile radius. On composite proficiency, Cahuilla Elementary comes 5th of 7 in the immediate cluster, beneath the nearby-schools average of 34.2%.

Geographically, the school is in a bedroom-community area.

Looking at the recent track record. Over the past 7-year window, the student count decreased 27%: 546 students in 2018 compared to 399 in 2025. Hispanic enrollment moved from 67% to 71% across the same window. The student-to-teacher ratio tightened from 22.8:1 in 2018 to 19.2:1 today.

In the discussion threads here, the feed for Cahuilla Elementary typically covers science fair prep, picture-day reminders, and bus-route questions. Anyone with firsthand experience at this school can post or comment.