Elmer Wood Elementary

Elmer Wood Elementary is a middle-of-the-pack elementary school in Atwater, California, one of the schools within Atwater Elementary. The school serves 514 students in grades K through 6.

Within Atwater Elementary, which oversees 11 schools and 4,925 students, Elmer Wood Elementary is one campus in the system.

On demographics, Elmer Wood Elementary records that Hispanic students make up the majority at 75%. Other groups include 18% White, 3% multiracial. By comparison, Merced County as a whole is about 63% Hispanic, so the school skews visibly more Hispanic than its surroundings.

Looking at the economic backdrop, Staff filings list 22 full-time-equivalent teachers, which works out to roughly 23.4:1 students per teacher. That figure is higher than the state norm's 22.3:1 average. About 76% of enrolled students meet the income threshold for free or reduced-price lunch, which schools and policymakers use as a rough income-mix signal.

Adjusting for the school's free-and-reduced-lunch share, Elmer Wood Elementary performs roughly as the BeatsExpectations model predicts for a school with this FRL share. The predicted value is around 34.1%, the actual is 46.0%, a residual of +11.9 points.

Zooming out to the county, census data for Merced County shows the typical household earns roughly $65,510 per year, 15% of adults hold a bachelor's degree or higher, and the poverty rate sits near 16%. In all, Merced County runs 117 public schools (combined enrollment of about 59,456 students), of which Elmer Wood Elementary is one.

The closest other public school is Atwater Senior Academy, roughly 0.5 miles away. 8 of the 8 nearest public schools sit inside a five-mile radius. Ranking that nearby cluster on reported proficiency puts Elmer Wood Elementary at 2nd of 8; the average score across the group is 37.5%.

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

Trend over the last 7 years. Looking back 7 years, enrollment at Elmer Wood Elementary has fell 5%, going from 543 students in 2018 to 514 in 2025. The White share of enrollment decreased from 29% to 18% over that span. Class-load math has tightened: from 28.6:1 in 2018 to 23.4:1 in 2025.

Inside the community feed, posts here usually surface around science fair prep, picture-day reminders, and bus-route questions. Anyone with firsthand experience at this school can post or comment.