Summit Charter Academy

Summit Charter Academy is an all-grades campus of roomy scale in Porterville, California, part of Burton Elementary, enrolling 2,423 students in grades K through 12. By comparison, California's public schools average about 602 students each, so Summit Charter Academy sits 302% above that benchmark.

Within Burton Elementary, which oversees 7 schools and 4,805 students, Summit Charter Academy is one campus in the system.

On demographics, Summit Charter Academy logs that nearly all students (81%) are Hispanic. Beyond that, the school logs 11% White, 4% multiracial. That is visibly more Hispanic than the county at large, where the share is closer to 67%.

On the resource side, Summit Charter Academy lists 107 full-time-equivalent teachers, putting the student-to-teacher ratio at about 22.7:1. The state averages around 18.6:1, so this campus is higher than the state norm typical. An estimated 73% 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, Summit Charter Academy performs roughly as the BeatsExpectations model predicts for a school with this FRL share. The predicted value is around 36.3%, the actual is 40.2%, a residual of +3.9 points.

Across the wider county, community-level numbers for Tulare County indicate the typical household earns roughly $71,300 per year, about 17% of the adult population holds a bachelor's degree or above, and roughly 15% of residents live below the federal poverty line. Across Tulare County's 196 public schools (combined enrollment of about 101,494 students), Summit Charter Academy is one campus in the mix.

Nearest neighbor: Jim Maples Academy, around 0.7 miles off. Within five miles, there are 8 other public schools. Ranking that nearby cluster on reported proficiency puts Summit Charter Academy at 2nd of 8; the average score across the group is 31.2%.

The school occupies a bedroom-community site. As a public charter, Summit Charter Academy runs on public funding but with greater curricular and operational autonomy than a typical district school.

Five-year trend. Looking back 7 years, enrollment at Summit Charter Academy has climbed 20%, going from 2,023 students in 2018 to 2,423 in 2025. Over the same period, the White share fell from 22% to 11%.

Within the allk12 community for this school, members of the Summit Charter Academy community share and discuss classroom updates, athletics, and weather closures. Members of the school community can share what they know.