Sycamore Elementary

Sycamore Elementary is an intimate K-5 school in Orange, California, part of Orange Unified. The school serves 357 students in grades K through 6. By comparison, California's public schools average about 465 students each, so Sycamore Elementary sits 23% below that benchmark.

Sycamore Elementary is one of 40 schools operated by Orange Unified, a district that teaches 23,790 students overall.

For racial and ethnic makeup, Sycamore Elementary records that the student body is overwhelmingly Hispanic (88%); the rest reads as 6% White, 3% multiracial, 3% Asian. By comparison, Orange County as a whole is about 34% Hispanic, so the school skews considerably more Hispanic than its surroundings.

On the resource side, The school reports having 16 full-time-equivalent teachers, for a student-teacher ratio near 22.5:1. That tracks the state average closely. About 89% of enrolled students meet the income threshold for free or reduced-price lunch, a number frequently used as a low-income enrollment indicator. Set against Orange County (around 55%), the school's rate is meaningfully above typical.

On a demographically-adjusted basis, Sycamore Elementary tracks the demographic baseline. The model predicts 27.7% given the school's FRL share; actual proficiency is 39.3%.

In the area at large, census data for Orange County shows median household income runs about $116,289, 44% of adults hold a bachelor's degree or higher, and census figures put the poverty rate at about 7%. In all, Orange County runs 649 public schools (combined enrollment of about 430,458 students), of which Sycamore Elementary is one.

Nearest neighbor: Portola Middle, around 0.2 miles off. Counting just inside five miles, 8 other public schools cluster around Sycamore Elementary. On composite proficiency, Sycamore Elementary comes 2nd of 5 in the immediate cluster, ahead of the nearby-schools average of 29.0%.

Sycamore Elementary operates from an inner-city location.

Over the past 7-year window. Looking back 7 years, enrollment at Sycamore Elementary has ticked down 15%, going from 419 students in 2018 to 357 in 2025. The student-to-teacher ratio narrowed from 25.8:1 in 2018 to 22.5:1 today.

In the discussion threads here, the page collects discussion, questions, and updates around fundraisers, lost-and-found posts, and report-card season. Anyone with firsthand experience at this school can post or comment.