Hawthorne Elementary

Hawthorne Elementary is one of the mid-tier K-5 schools in Riverside, California, operated by Riverside Unified, with 663 students on its rolls from grades K through 6. Enrollment runs roughly 43% larger than the state mean of about 465.

Hawthorne Elementary is one of 48 schools operated by Riverside Unified, a district that educates 38,002 students overall.

For racial and ethnic makeup, Hawthorne Elementary shows that 79% of the student body identifies as Hispanic. The remainder is composed of 11% White, 5% Black, 2% Asian, 2% multiracial. That is visibly more Hispanic than the county at large, where the share is closer to 51%.

On the resource side, Staff filings list 28 full-time-equivalent teachers, which works out to roughly 23.5:1 students per teacher. Statewide, the average ratio sits near 22.3:1, putting Hawthorne Elementary higher than the state norm the norm. Roughly 81% of students at Hawthorne Elementary qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, a commonly cited indicator of low-income enrollment.

With demographic context factored in, Hawthorne Elementary sits in the middle band of the BeatsExpectations distribution. Schools with this campus's student mix typically land near 31.4%; this one delivers 31.9%.

Across the wider county, the surrounding county (Riverside County) shows that median household earnings sit near $93,074, roughly 26% of adults have completed at least a four-year degree, and roughly 8% of residents live below the federal poverty line. Across Riverside County's 543 public schools (combined enrollment of about 424,872 students), Hawthorne Elementary is one campus in the mix.

Nearest neighbor: Arlington High, around 0.3 miles off. 8 of the 8 nearest public schools sit inside a five-mile radius. On composite proficiency, Hawthorne Elementary comes 4th of 7 in the immediate cluster, higher than the nearby-schools average of 31.5%.

Hawthorne Elementary operates from a metropolitan location.

Trend over the last 7 years. Over the past 7-year window, the student count declined 14%: 767 students in 2018 compared to 663 in 2025. Over the same period, the White share fell from 17% to 11%.

On the community side, members of the Hawthorne Elementary community share and discuss science fair prep, picture-day reminders, and bus-route questions. Posting is open to anyone connected to the school.