Columbia Elementary

Columbia Elementary is an elementary school of sprawling scale in El Monte, California, operated by El Monte City, instructing 706 students in grades K through 8. Enrollment runs roughly 52% above the state mean of about 465.

Within El Monte City, which oversees 15 schools and 6,913 students, Columbia Elementary is one campus in the system.

On demographics, Columbia Elementary logs that nearly all students (90%) are Hispanic. Beyond that, the school reports 9% Asian. That is considerably more Hispanic than the county at large, where the share is closer to 48%.

In terms of school funding signals, The school reports having 30 full-time-equivalent teachers, for a student-teacher ratio near 23.7:1. The state averages around 22.3:1, so this campus is higher than the state norm typical. Roughly 90% of students at Columbia Elementary qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, which schools and policymakers use as a rough income-mix signal. Set against Los Angeles County (around 70%), the school's rate is meaningfully above typical.

On a residual basis (actual vs predicted given the student mix), Columbia Elementary sits in the middle band of the BeatsExpectations distribution. Schools with this campus's student mix typically land near 25.7%; this one delivers 33.9%.

Around the school, community-level numbers for Los Angeles County indicate the typical household earns roughly $90,112 per year, about 36% of the adult population holds a bachelor's degree or above, and roughly 10% of residents live below the federal poverty line. In all, Los Angeles County runs 2244 public schools (combined enrollment of about 1,265,907 students), of which Columbia Elementary is one.

El Monte High is the nearest neighboring public school, about 0.5 miles from this campus. 8 of the 8 nearest public schools sit inside a five-mile radius. Among the 9 schools in that immediate cluster with test data (this one included), Columbia Elementary ranks 7th on composite proficiency, below the local average of 39.5%.

Geographically, the school is in a suburban area.

Trend over the last 7 years. Looking back 7 years, enrollment at Columbia Elementary has decreased 22%, going from 902 students in 2018 to 706 in 2025.

Within the allk12 community for this school, posts here usually surface around fundraisers, lost-and-found posts, and report-card season. Posting is open to anyone connected to the school.