Grace Smith Elementary

Grace Smith Elementary is a rural-scale primary school in Niland, California, part of Calipatria Unified. The school caters to 65 students in grades K through 4. Enrollment runs roughly 86% leaner than the state mean of about 465.

Across the 4 schools in Calipatria Unified (1,080 students total), Grace Smith Elementary accounts for its share of the district's footprint.

On demographics, Grace Smith Elementary logs that 80% of students identify as Hispanic, making the school strongly Hispanic-majority. Other groups include 17% White.

In terms of school funding signals, The school currently runs with 5 full-time-equivalent teachers, for a student-teacher ratio near 13.0:1. The state averages around 22.3:1, so this campus is tighter than the state norm typical. About 92% of enrolled students meet the income threshold for free or reduced-price lunch, often used as a Title I proxy. That share is above Imperial County's rate of about 77%.

Adjusting for the school's free-and-reduced-lunch share, Grace Smith Elementary ranks in the top 10% of California public schools. The BeatsExpectations model, a per-state regression of composite proficiency on FRL share, predicts schools with this student profile to land around 24.5%; Grace Smith Elementary posts 44.7%, +20.2 points above that line.

In the surrounding community, Imperial County reports that the typical household earns roughly $57,681 per year, about 16% of the adult population holds a bachelor's degree or above, and census figures put the poverty rate at about 17%. In all, Imperial County runs 76 public schools (combined enrollment of about 36,513 students), of which Grace Smith Elementary is one.

Fremont Primary is the nearest neighboring public school, about 7.8 miles from this campus. 3 of the 8 nearest public schools sit inside a ten-mile radius, suggesting a relatively low-density school footprint. On composite proficiency, Grace Smith Elementary comes 1st of 6 in the immediate cluster, above the nearby-schools average of 25.5%.

The school occupies a small-town site.

Trend over the last 7 years. Grace Smith Elementary's enrollment has decreased 16% since 2018, when it stood at 77 (now 65). Black enrollment moved from 6% to 0% across the same window. Class-load math has narrowed: from 15.4:1 in 2018 to 13.0:1 in 2025.

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