Sutters Mill

Sutters Mill is one of the close-knit primary schools in Placerville, California, run under Gold Trail Union Elementary, with 201 students on its rolls from grades K through 3. That puts it 57% below the typical public school in California, which averages around 465 students.

Across the 2 schools in Gold Trail Union Elementary (475 students total), Sutters Mill accounts for its share of the district's footprint.

On the student-mix side, Sutters Mill logs that 70% of the student body identifies as White. The remainder is composed of 22% Hispanic, 7% multiracial. By comparison, El Dorado County as a whole is about 78% White, so the school skews visibly less White than its surroundings.

Looking at school resources, On paper, Sutters Mill has 10 full-time-equivalent teachers, translating to a class-load average of around 20.1:1. Statewide, the average ratio sits near 22.3:1, putting Sutters Mill tighter than the state norm the norm. An estimated 40% of students are eligible for free or reduced-price lunch, often used as a Title I proxy.

On a residual basis (actual vs predicted given the student mix), Sutters Mill sits in the middle band of the BeatsExpectations distribution. Schools with this campus's student mix typically land near 55.8%; this one delivers 52.4%.

In the broader community, community-level numbers for El Dorado County indicate median household earnings sit near $108,845, roughly 40% of adults have completed at least a four-year degree, and the poverty rate sits near 5%. Across El Dorado County's 69 public schools (combined enrollment of about 34,706 students), Sutters Mill is one campus in the mix.

Nearest neighbor: Gold Trail, around 2.0 miles off. 5 of the 8 nearest public schools sit inside a five-mile radius. On composite proficiency, Sutters Mill comes 4th of 7 in the immediate cluster, above the nearby-schools average of 48.7%.

The campus sits in a small-town setting.

Five-year trend. Over the past 7-year window, the student count decreased 30%: 289 students in 2018 compared to 201 in 2025. The White share of enrollment fell from 83% to 70% over that span. The student-to-teacher ratio narrowed from 22.2:1 in 2018 to 20.1:1 today.

On this page, the page collects discussion, questions, and updates around open house dates, ride-share offers, and field-trip permission slips. Anyone with firsthand experience at this school can post or comment.