Palma Ceia Elementary

Palma Ceia Elementary is one of the mid-sized primary schools in Hayward, California, run under Hayward Unified, with 484 students on its rolls from grades K through 6.

Hayward Unified comprises 28 schools with combined enrollment of 17,273 students; Palma Ceia Elementary is among them.

In terms of who attends, Palma Ceia Elementary shows that 69% of the student body identifies as Hispanic; the rest looks like 19% Asian, 4% multiracial, 3% Black, 2% Pacific Islander. That is visibly more Hispanic than the county at large, where the share is closer to 23%.

Looking at school resources, Staff filings list 21 full-time-equivalent teachers, which works out to roughly 22.8:1 students per teacher. The state averages about 22.3:1, putting this campus right in line with peers. About 76% of enrolled students meet the income threshold for free or reduced-price lunch, a commonly cited indicator of low-income enrollment. By comparison, Alameda County runs at roughly 49%, so the school's eligibility rate is higher than the surrounding baseline.

Adjusting for the school's free-and-reduced-lunch share, Palma Ceia Elementary sits in the middle band of the BeatsExpectations distribution. Schools with this campus's student mix typically land near 34.1%; this one delivers 33.1%.

Zooming out to the county, census data for Alameda County shows the typical household earns roughly $129,367 per year, about 52% of the adult population holds a bachelor's degree or above, and the poverty rate sits near 6%. Across Alameda County's 394 public schools (combined enrollment of about 210,511 students), Palma Ceia Elementary is one campus in the mix.

Nearest neighbor: Mt. Eden High, around 0.3 miles off. 8 of the 8 nearest public schools sit inside a five-mile radius. On composite proficiency, Palma Ceia Elementary comes 3rd of 7 in the immediate cluster, ahead of the nearby-schools average of 32.5%.

The campus sits in a suburban setting.

Five-year trend. Looking back 7 years, enrollment at Palma Ceia Elementary has ticked down 13%, going from 557 students in 2018 to 484 in 2025. The Hispanic share of enrollment edged up from 60% to 69% over that span. Class-load math has narrowed: from 24.2:1 in 2018 to 22.8:1 in 2025.

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