Garfield Elementary

Garfield Elementary is an elementary school of average-sized scale in Long Beach, California, run under Long Beach Unified, teacheing 536 students in grades K through 5.

Long Beach Unified comprises 82 schools with combined enrollment of 62,255 students; Garfield Elementary is among them.

Demographically, Garfield Elementary shows that Hispanic students make up the majority at 77%. The remainder consists of 14% Asian, 6% Black, 2% White. The wider county runs roughly 48% Hispanic, putting the school's mix meaningfully more Hispanic than the area baseline.

On the income-and-resources front, The school employs 21 full-time-equivalent teachers, for a student-teacher ratio near 26.1:1. That figure is higher than the state norm's 22.3:1 average. About 78% 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 higher than the surrounding baseline.

With demographic context factored in, Garfield Elementary sits in the middle band of the BeatsExpectations distribution. Schools with this campus's student mix typically land near 33.0%; this one delivers 38.3%.

In the area at large, Los Angeles County reports that median household income runs about $90,112, 36% of adults hold a bachelor's degree or higher, and the poverty rate sits near 10%. Garfield Elementary is one of 2244 public schools in Los Angeles County (combined enrollment of about 1,265,907 students).

Cabrillo High is the nearest neighboring public school, about 0.3 miles from this campus. Counting just inside five miles, 8 other public schools cluster around Garfield Elementary. Among the 8 schools in that immediate cluster with test data (this one included), Garfield Elementary ranks 3rd on composite proficiency, above the local average of 34.6%.

Geographically, the school is in a downtown area.

Over the past 7-year window. Looking back 7 years, enrollment at Garfield Elementary has fell 25%, going from 710 students in 2018 to 536 in 2025. Class-load math has rose: from 23.7:1 in 2018 to 26.1:1 in 2025.

On the community side, recent activity here tends to focus on open house dates, ride-share offers, and field-trip permission slips. Anyone with firsthand experience at this school can post or comment.