Meridian Elementary

Meridian Elementary is one of the mid-sized elementary campuss in El Cajon, California, part of Cajon Valley Union, with 570 students on its rolls from grades K through 5. By comparison, California's public schools average about 465 students each, so Meridian Elementary sits 23% above that benchmark.

Across the 25 schools in Cajon Valley Union (15,974 students total), Meridian Elementary accounts for its share of the district's footprint.

On the student-mix side, Meridian Elementary reports that 48% of students identify as White, with the remaining enrollment distributed across several groups. Beyond that, the school lists 20% Hispanic, 16% Asian, 10% multiracial, 5% Black. That mix tracks the wider county fairly closely.

Looking at the economic backdrop, The school currently runs with 24 full-time-equivalent teachers, for a student-teacher ratio near 23.4:1. That figure is higher than the state norm's 22.3:1 average. Roughly 93% of students at Meridian Elementary qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, which schools and policymakers use as a rough income-mix signal. That share is north of San Diego County's rate of about 54%.

With demographic context factored in, Meridian Elementary performs roughly as the BeatsExpectations model predicts for a school with this FRL share. The predicted value is around 24.0%, the actual is 17.7%, a residual of -6.3 points.

Across the wider county, ACS estimates for San Diego County put median household income runs about $106,268, roughly 43% of adults have completed at least a four-year degree, and roughly 7% of residents live below the federal poverty line. In all, San Diego County runs 766 public schools (combined enrollment of about 467,437 students), of which Meridian Elementary is one.

Nearest neighbor: REACH Academy, around 0.6 miles off. Within five miles, there are 8 other public schools. On composite proficiency, Meridian Elementary comes 3rd of 6 in the immediate cluster, beneath the nearby-schools average of 19.8%.

The school occupies an outer-ring site.

Over the past 7-year window. Over the past 7-year window, the student count shrank 9%: 624 students in 2018 compared to 570 in 2025. Over the same period, the Asian share ticked up from 3% to 16%.

Inside the community feed, posts here usually surface around open house dates, ride-share offers, and field-trip permission slips. Contributors range from current parents to recent graduates and teachers.