El Morro Elementary

Located at 8681 North Coast Hwy., in Laguna Beach, California, El Morro Elementary is an average-sized primary school that educates 404 students (grades K through 5), operated by Laguna Beach Unified.

Laguna Beach Unified comprises 4 schools with combined enrollment of 2,279 students; El Morro Elementary is among them.

On the student-mix side, El Morro Elementary records that 70% of the student body identifies as White; the rest is composed of 13% Hispanic, 10% multiracial, 6% Asian. By comparison, Orange County as a whole is about 43% White, so the school skews visibly more White than its surroundings.

On the resource side, On paper, El Morro Elementary has 19 full-time-equivalent teachers, translating to a class-load average of around 21.3:1. Statewide, the average ratio sits near 22.3:1, putting El Morro Elementary tighter than the state norm the norm. About 25% of enrolled students meet the income threshold for free or reduced-price lunch, often used as a Title I proxy. Set against Orange County (around 55%), the school's rate is meaningfully below typical.

On a demographically-adjusted basis, El Morro Elementary sits in the middle band of the BeatsExpectations distribution. Schools with this campus's student mix typically land near 64.9%; this one delivers 75.5%.

In the surrounding community, ACS estimates for Orange County put median household earnings sit near $116,289, roughly 44% of adults have completed at least a four-year degree, and the poverty rate sits near 7%. El Morro Elementary is one of 649 public schools in Orange County (combined enrollment of about 430,458 students).

Nearest neighbor: Newport Coast Elementary, around 2.9 miles off. Counting just inside five miles, 8 other public schools cluster around El Morro Elementary. On composite proficiency, El Morro Elementary comes 7th of 9 in the immediate cluster, beneath the nearby-schools average of 76.8%.

The campus sits in a bedroom-community setting.

Over the past 7-year window. Looking back 7 years, enrollment at El Morro Elementary has fell 14%, going from 471 students in 2018 to 404 in 2025. The student-to-teacher ratio rose from 19.6:1 in 2018 to 21.3:1 today.

Inside the community feed, members of the El Morro Elementary community share and discuss school events, parent volunteer needs, and clubs. The community welcomes input from current and former families.