Clarence Ruth Elementary

Clarence Ruth Elementary is one of the middle-of-the-pack elementary schools in Lompoc, California, part of Lompoc Unified, with 495 students on its rolls from grades K through 6.

Within Lompoc Unified, which oversees 16 schools and 8,896 students, Clarence Ruth Elementary is one campus in the system.

On the student-mix side, Clarence Ruth Elementary shows that the student body is overwhelmingly Hispanic (86%); the rest breaks down as 6% White, 5% multiracial, 2% Black. By comparison, Santa Barbara County as a whole is about 48% Hispanic, so the school skews noticeably more Hispanic than its surroundings.

Looking at the economic backdrop, The school lists 22 full-time-equivalent teachers, for a student-teacher ratio near 22.5:1. The state averages about 22.3:1, putting this campus right in line with peers. An estimated 84% of students are eligible for free or reduced-price lunch, which schools and policymakers use as a rough income-mix signal. That share is north of Santa Barbara County's rate of about 68%.

On a demographically-adjusted basis, Clarence Ruth Elementary performs roughly as the BeatsExpectations model predicts for a school with this FRL share. The predicted value is around 29.2%, the actual is 21.2%, a residual of -8.0 points.

Around the school, Santa Barbara County reports that the typical household earns roughly $98,161 per year, 37% of adults hold a bachelor's degree or higher, and the poverty rate sits near 9%. In all, Santa Barbara County runs 129 public schools (combined enrollment of about 66,191 students), of which Clarence Ruth Elementary is one.

Lompoc High is the nearest neighboring public school, about 0.7 miles from this campus. 8 of the 8 nearest public schools sit inside a five-mile radius. On composite proficiency, Clarence Ruth Elementary comes 3rd of 6 in the immediate cluster, below the nearby-schools average of 22.6%.

The school occupies a commuter-belt site.

Trend over the last 7 years. Looking back 7 years, enrollment at Clarence Ruth Elementary has fell 17%, going from 598 students in 2018 to 495 in 2025. The student-to-teacher ratio tightened from 23.9:1 in 2018 to 22.5:1 today.

On this page, the page collects discussion, questions, and updates around science fair prep, picture-day reminders, and bus-route questions. Anyone with firsthand experience at this school can post or comment.