Murdock Elementary

Murdock Elementary operates as a moderately sized elementary campus in La Mesa, California, run under La Mesa-Spring Valley. Current enrollment sits at 608 students spanning grades K through 5. That puts it 31% larger than the typical public school in California, which averages around 465 students.

La Mesa-Spring Valley runs 22 schools in total, collectively educating 10,491 students. Murdock Elementary is one of those campuses.

Demographically, Murdock Elementary logs that the largest single group is Hispanic at 42%, but no single group is in the majority. Beyond that, the school shows 35% White, 15% multiracial, 4% Black, 4% Asian.

On the resource side, Murdock Elementary lists 25 full-time-equivalent teachers, putting the student-to-teacher ratio at about 24.3:1. That figure is higher than the state norm's 22.3:1 average. Roughly 43% of students at Murdock Elementary qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, often used as a Title I proxy. Set against San Diego County (around 54%), the school's rate is meaningfully below typical.

On a residual basis (actual vs predicted given the student mix), Murdock Elementary performs roughly as the BeatsExpectations model predicts for a school with this FRL share. The predicted value is around 53.8%, the actual is 56.0%, a residual of +2.1 points.

Across the wider county, community-level numbers for San Diego County indicate median household earnings sit near $106,268, about 43% of the adult population holds a bachelor's degree or above, and census figures put the poverty rate at about 7%. In all, San Diego County runs 766 public schools (combined enrollment of about 467,437 students), of which Murdock Elementary is one.

Spring Valley Academy is the nearest neighboring public school, about 0.7 miles from this campus. 8 of the 8 nearest public schools sit inside a five-mile radius. Ranking that nearby cluster on reported proficiency puts Murdock Elementary at 1st of 7; the average score across the group is 36.5%.

The campus sits in a bedroom-community setting.

Five-year trend. Murdock Elementary's enrollment has remained close to its prior level since 2018, when it stood at 611 (now 608). The White share of enrollment contracted from 42% to 35% over that span. The student-to-teacher ratio tightened from 28.4:1 in 2018 to 24.3:1 today.

On allk12, recent activity here tends to focus on school events, parent volunteer needs, and clubs. The community welcomes input from current and former families.