Foster Elementary

Located at 1620 North Pannes St., in Compton, California, Foster Elementary is an average-sized primary school that enrolls 398 students (grades K through 5), overseen by Compton Unified.

Compton Unified comprises 36 schools with combined enrollment of 16,304 students; Foster Elementary is among them.

On the student-mix side, Foster Elementary reports that the student body is overwhelmingly Hispanic (88%); the rest reads as 11% Black. By comparison, Los Angeles County as a whole is about 48% Hispanic, so the school skews visibly more Hispanic than its surroundings.

Looking at school resources, Foster Elementary reports 16 full-time-equivalent teachers, putting the student-to-teacher ratio at about 24.9:1. That figure is higher than the state norm's 22.3:1 average. About 85% of enrolled students meet the income threshold for free or reduced-price lunch, which schools and policymakers use as a rough income-mix signal. By comparison, Los Angeles County runs at roughly 70%, so the school's eligibility rate is somewhat above the surrounding baseline.

Adjusting for the school's free-and-reduced-lunch share, Foster Elementary is in the OUTPERFORMING tier of the BeatsExpectations model, which fits a per-state line through proficiency and FRL share. Schools with this campus's poverty mix typically land near 28.9%; this one delivers 48.1%, a residual of +19.3 points.

In the surrounding community, community-level numbers for Los Angeles County indicate median household income runs about $90,112, about 36% of the adult population holds a bachelor's degree or above, and the poverty rate sits near 10%. Across Los Angeles County's 2244 public schools (combined enrollment of about 1,265,907 students), Foster Elementary is one campus in the mix.

Nearest neighbor: Roosevelt Elementary, around 0.4 miles off. Within five miles, there are 8 other public schools. Among the 8 schools in that immediate cluster with test data (this one included), Foster Elementary ranks 1st on composite proficiency, higher than the local average of 30.1%.

The school occupies a residential site.

Looking at the recent track record. Looking back 7 years, enrollment at Foster Elementary has fell 46%, going from 738 students in 2018 to 398 in 2025. Hispanic enrollment moved from 80% to 88% across the same window. The student-to-teacher ratio narrowed from 28.4:1 in 2018 to 24.9:1 today.

Within the allk12 community for this school, the page collects discussion, questions, and updates around open house dates, ride-share offers, and field-trip permission slips. Anyone with firsthand experience at this school can post or comment.