Snelling-Merced Falls Elementary

As an one-room-style elementary-level community in Snelling, California, Snelling-Merced Falls Elementary works with 55 students from grades K through 8, overseen by Snelling-Merced Falls Union Elementary. By comparison, California's public schools average about 465 students each, so Snelling-Merced Falls Elementary sits 88% smaller than that benchmark.

Snelling-Merced Falls Elementary sits inside Snelling-Merced Falls Union Elementary, the local public-school operator responsible for the campus.

For racial and ethnic makeup, Snelling-Merced Falls Elementary logs that the most-represented group is Hispanic (53%), with the rest of the student body spread across multiple groups. Beyond that, the school logs 42% White, 5% multiracial. That is meaningfully less Hispanic than the county at large, where the share is closer to 63%.

Looking at school resources, Staff filings list 5 full-time-equivalent teachers, which works out to roughly 11.0:1 students per teacher. That figure is tighter than the state norm's 22.3:1 average. An estimated 85% of students are eligible for free or reduced-price lunch, a number frequently used as a low-income enrollment indicator.

After controlling for student poverty, Snelling-Merced Falls Elementary performs roughly as the BeatsExpectations model predicts for a school with this FRL share. The predicted value is around 29.5%, the actual is 39.4%, a residual of +9.9 points.

In the broader community, community-level numbers for Merced County indicate median household income runs about $65,510, 15% of adults hold a bachelor's degree or higher, and the poverty rate sits near 16%. In all, Merced County runs 117 public schools (combined enrollment of about 59,456 students), of which Snelling-Merced Falls Elementary is one.

Washington Elementary is the nearest neighboring public school, about 9.2 miles from this campus. Ranking that nearby cluster on reported proficiency puts Snelling-Merced Falls Elementary at 3rd of 6; the average score across the group is 34.3%.

Snelling-Merced Falls Elementary operates from a low-density location.

Five-year trend. Over the past 7-year window, the student count fell 33%: 82 students in 2018 compared to 55 in 2025. White enrollment moved from 56% to 42% across the same window. The student-to-teacher ratio tightened from 20.5:1 in 2018 to 11.0:1 today.

On allk12, the page collects discussion, questions, and updates around pickup logistics, teacher feedback, and after-school programs. Members of the school community can share what they know.