James Madison Elementary

James Madison Elementary is a roomy K-5 school in Madera, California, overseen by Madera Unified. The school hosts 739 students in grades K through 8. Enrollment runs roughly 59% above the state mean of about 465.

Madera Unified runs 28 schools in total, collectively educating 19,922 students. James Madison Elementary is one of those campuses.

In terms of who attends, James Madison Elementary reports that 95% of students identify as Hispanic, making the school strongly Hispanic-majority; the rest comes out to 2% multiracial. By comparison, Madera County as a whole is about 61% Hispanic, so the school skews meaningfully more Hispanic than its surroundings.

Looking at school resources, The school lists 36 full-time-equivalent teachers, for a student-teacher ratio near 20.5:1. The state averages around 22.3:1, so this campus is tighter than the state norm typical. An estimated 86% of students are eligible for free or reduced-price lunch, a number frequently used as a low-income enrollment indicator.

On a demographically-adjusted basis, James Madison Elementary performs roughly as the BeatsExpectations model predicts for a school with this FRL share. The predicted value is around 28.5%, the actual is 23.5%, a residual of -5.0 points.

Across the wider county, ACS estimates for Madera County put median household earnings sit near $76,627, roughly 18% of adults have completed at least a four-year degree, and roughly 14% of residents live below the federal poverty line. In all, Madera County runs 81 public schools (combined enrollment of about 32,251 students), of which James Madison Elementary is one.

Madera High is the nearest neighboring public school, about 0.2 miles from this campus. 8 of the 8 nearest public schools sit inside a five-mile radius. Among the 6 schools in that immediate cluster with test data (this one included), James Madison Elementary ranks 6th on composite proficiency, behind the local average of 28.4%.

The school occupies an outer-ring site.

Five-year trend. Over the past 7-year window, the student count expanded 18%: 624 students in 2018 compared to 739 in 2025. Class-load math has pulled in: from 24.0:1 in 2018 to 20.5:1 in 2025.

In the discussion threads here, members of the James Madison Elementary community share and discuss open house dates, ride-share offers, and field-trip permission slips. Contributors range from current parents to recent graduates and teachers.