Mabel L. Pendleton Elementary

As a close-knit primary school in Buena Park, California, Mabel L. Pendleton Elementary teaches 365 students from grades K through 5, one of the schools within Buena Park Elementary. Enrollment runs roughly 22% leaner than the state mean of about 465.

Across the 7 schools in Buena Park Elementary (3,675 students total), Mabel L. Pendleton Elementary accounts for its share of the district's footprint.

Demographically, Mabel L. Pendleton Elementary logs that the largest single group is Hispanic, at 78% of enrollment. The remainder comes out to 10% Asian, 4% multiracial, 4% Black, 3% White. By comparison, Orange County as a whole is about 34% Hispanic, so the school skews meaningfully more Hispanic than its surroundings.

On the income-and-resources front, The school employs 19 full-time-equivalent teachers, for a student-teacher ratio near 19.7:1. Statewide, the average ratio sits near 22.3:1, putting Mabel L. Pendleton Elementary tighter than the state norm the norm. About 88% of enrolled students meet the income threshold for free or reduced-price lunch, a number frequently used as a low-income enrollment indicator. That share is higher than Orange County's rate of about 55%.

Adjusting for the school's free-and-reduced-lunch share, Mabel L. Pendleton Elementary performs roughly as the BeatsExpectations model predicts for a school with this FRL share. The predicted value is around 27.3%, the actual is 32.2%, a residual of +5.0 points.

Zooming out to the county, community-level numbers for Orange County indicate the typical household earns roughly $116,289 per year, about 44% of the adult population holds a bachelor's degree or above, and census figures put the poverty rate at about 7%. Across Orange County's 649 public schools (combined enrollment of about 430,458 students), Mabel L. Pendleton Elementary is one campus in the mix.

Nearest neighbor: James A. Whitaker Elementary, around 0.6 miles off. Within five miles, there are 8 other public schools. Ranking that nearby cluster on reported proficiency puts Mabel L. Pendleton Elementary at 4th of 8; the average score across the group is 33.1%.

Geographically, the school is in a bedroom-community area.

Trend over the last 7 years. Mabel L. Pendleton Elementary's enrollment has fell 19% since 2018, when it stood at 448 (now 365). Over the same period, the Hispanic share decreased from 83% to 78%. Class-load math has fell: from 24.2:1 in 2018 to 19.7:1 in 2025.

On this page, posts here usually surface around open house dates, ride-share offers, and field-trip permission slips. Posting is open to anyone connected to the school.