Montara Avenue Elementary

As a medium-sized elementary-level community in South Gate, California, Montara Avenue Elementary enrolls 554 students from grades K through 6, run under Los Angeles Unified.

Montara Avenue Elementary is one of 784 schools operated by Los Angeles Unified, a district that works with 406,887 students overall.

On the student-mix side, Montara Avenue Elementary lists that 97% of students identify as Hispanic, making the school strongly Hispanic-majority. That is visibly more Hispanic than the county at large, where the share is closer to 48%.

Looking at the economic backdrop, On paper, Montara Avenue Elementary has 31 full-time-equivalent teachers, translating to a class-load average of around 17.9:1. That figure is tighter than the state norm's 22.3:1 average. Roughly 93% of students at Montara Avenue Elementary qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, a number frequently used as a low-income enrollment indicator. Set against Los Angeles County (around 70%), the school's rate is noticeably above typical.

With demographic context factored in, Montara Avenue Elementary ranks in the top 10% of California public schools. The BeatsExpectations model, a per-state regression of composite proficiency on FRL share, predicts schools with this student profile to land around 23.9%; Montara Avenue Elementary posts 41.5%, +17.6 points above that line.

Around the school, Los Angeles County reports that median household income runs about $90,112, roughly 36% of adults have completed at least a four-year degree, and the poverty rate sits near 10%. In all, Los Angeles County runs 2244 public schools (combined enrollment of about 1,265,907 students), of which Montara Avenue Elementary is one.

The closest other public school is Madison Elementary, roughly 0.2 miles away. 8 of the 8 nearest public schools sit inside a five-mile radius. Among the 7 schools in that immediate cluster with test data (this one included), Montara Avenue Elementary ranks 3rd on composite proficiency, above the local average of 34.3%.

Geographically, the school is in an outer-ring area.

Trend over the last 7 years. Over the past 7-year window, the student count edged down 34%: 841 students in 2018 compared to 554 in 2025. The student-to-teacher ratio fell from 21.0:1 in 2018 to 17.9:1 today.

Within the allk12 community for this school, recent activity here tends to focus on science fair prep, picture-day reminders, and bus-route questions. Anyone with firsthand experience at this school can post or comment.