Felix J. Appleby Elementary

Felix J. Appleby Elementary operates as an average-sized K-5 school in Blythe, California, run under Palo Verde Unified. Current enrollment sits at 617 students spanning grades K through 8. Enrollment runs roughly 33% above the state mean of about 465.

Palo Verde Unified runs 5 schools in total, collectively educating 2,610 students. Felix J. Appleby Elementary is one of those campuses.

For racial and ethnic makeup, Felix J. Appleby Elementary shows that 76% of the student body identifies as Hispanic. Beyond that, the school shows 14% White, 7% Black, 3% multiracial. The wider county runs roughly 51% Hispanic, putting the school's mix meaningfully more Hispanic than the area baseline.

On the resource side, Staff filings list 25 full-time-equivalent teachers, which works out to roughly 24.7:1 students per teacher. The state averages around 22.3:1, so this campus is higher than the state norm typical. About 86% of enrolled students meet the income threshold for free or reduced-price lunch, often used as a Title I proxy. By comparison, Riverside County runs at roughly 74%, so the school's eligibility rate is higher than the surrounding baseline.

After controlling for student poverty, Felix J. Appleby Elementary sits in the middle band of the BeatsExpectations distribution. Schools with this campus's student mix typically land near 28.2%; this one delivers 24.9%.

Across the wider county, community-level numbers for Riverside County indicate median household income runs about $93,074, roughly 26% of adults have completed at least a four-year degree, and roughly 8% of residents live below the federal poverty line. Across Riverside County's 543 public schools (combined enrollment of about 424,872 students), Felix J. Appleby Elementary is one campus in the mix.

Nearest neighbor: Ruth Brown Elementary, around 1.0 miles off. Within five miles, there are 5 other public schools. On composite proficiency, Felix J. Appleby Elementary comes 2nd of 4 in the immediate cluster, higher than the nearby-schools average of 19.1%.

Geographically, the school is in a low-density area.

Trend over the last 7 years. Over the past 7-year window, the student count ticked down 14%: 720 students in 2018 compared to 617 in 2025.

Within the allk12 community for this school, recent activity here tends to focus on enrollment questions, classroom assignments, and PTA news. Members of the school community can share what they know.