Gustine Elementary

Gustine Elementary is an elementary school of mid-sized scale in Gustine, California, one of the schools within Gustine Unified, works with 483 students in grades K through 5.

Within Gustine Unified, which oversees 5 schools and 1,627 students, Gustine Elementary is one campus in the system.

On demographics, Gustine Elementary reports that nearly all students (88%) are Hispanic. The remainder comes out to 8% White, 3% multiracial. By comparison, Merced County as a whole is about 63% Hispanic, so the school skews noticeably more Hispanic than its surroundings.

On the income-and-resources front, On paper, Gustine Elementary has 21 full-time-equivalent teachers, translating to a class-load average of around 23.0:1. The state averages about 22.3:1, putting this campus right in line with peers. Around 80% of the student body qualifies for free or reduced-price meals, which schools and policymakers use as a rough income-mix signal.

Adjusting for the school's free-and-reduced-lunch share, Gustine Elementary falls in the UNDERPERFORMING tier of the BeatsExpectations residual. Given its student profile, a typical campus would land near 32.0%; this one comes in at 17.1%, -14.9 points off the demographic line.

In the area at large, community-level numbers for Merced County indicate median household income runs about $65,510, roughly 15% of adults have completed at least a four-year degree, and the poverty rate sits near 16%. In all, Merced County runs 117 public schools (combined enrollment of about 59,456 students), of which Gustine Elementary is one.

The closest other public school is Gustine Middle, roughly 0.3 miles away. 5 of the 8 nearest public schools sit inside a five-mile radius. On composite proficiency, Gustine Elementary comes 5th of 6 in the immediate cluster, beneath the nearby-schools average of 21.7%.

The campus sits in a countryside setting.

Looking at the recent track record. Over the past 7-year window, the student count shrank 13%: 557 students in 2018 compared to 483 in 2025. The White share of enrollment decreased from 13% to 8% over that span. Class-load math has loosened: from 20.6:1 in 2018 to 23.0:1 in 2025.

Within the allk12 community for this school, members of the Gustine Elementary community share and discuss school events, parent volunteer needs, and clubs. The community welcomes input from current and former families.