Friendly Hills Elementary

Set in Joshua Tree, California, Friendly Hills Elementary is a cozy elementary school, one of the schools within Morongo Unified. It works with 266 students across grades K through 6. That puts it 43% leaner than the typical public school in California, which averages around 465 students.

Morongo Unified comprises 16 schools with combined enrollment of 7,225 students; Friendly Hills Elementary is among them.

Looking at the student body, Friendly Hills Elementary logs that 52% of students identify as White, with the remaining enrollment distributed across several groups. The remainder looks like 41% Hispanic, 4% multiracial. By comparison, San Bernardino County as a whole is about 33% White, so the school skews noticeably more White than its surroundings.

On the income-and-resources front, On paper, Friendly Hills Elementary has 12 full-time-equivalent teachers, translating to a class-load average of around 22.6:1. That tracks the state average closely. About 62% of enrolled students meet the income threshold for free or reduced-price lunch, a commonly cited indicator of low-income enrollment. That share is south of San Bernardino County's rate of about 74%.

On a residual basis (actual vs predicted given the student mix), Friendly Hills Elementary sits in the middle band of the BeatsExpectations distribution. Schools with this campus's student mix typically land near 42.3%; this one delivers 49.9%.

In the area at large, the surrounding county (San Bernardino County) records that median household income runs about $85,478, about 23% of the adult population holds a bachelor's degree or above, and the poverty rate sits near 11%. Across San Bernardino County's 583 public schools (combined enrollment of about 393,648 students), Friendly Hills Elementary is one campus in the mix.

Nearest neighbor: La Contenta Middle, around 2.0 miles off. 4 of the 8 nearest public schools sit inside a five-mile radius. Among the 8 schools in that immediate cluster with test data (this one included), Friendly Hills Elementary ranks 1st on composite proficiency, above the local average of 28.5%.

The campus sits in a small-town setting.

Five-year trend. Friendly Hills Elementary's enrollment has decreased 32% since 2018, when it stood at 393 (now 266). The Hispanic share of enrollment rose from 26% to 41% over that span. Class-load math has pulled in: from 23.9:1 in 2018 to 22.6:1 in 2025.

In the discussion threads here, posts here usually surface around sports schedules, lunch menu changes, and school spirit week. Contributors range from current parents to recent graduates and teachers.