Tierra Pacifica Charter

Tierra Pacifica Charter is an elementary school of rural-scale scale in Santa Cruz, California, part of Live Oak Elementary, instructing 166 students in grades K through 8. By comparison, California's public schools average about 465 students each, so Tierra Pacifica Charter sits 64% smaller than that benchmark.

Live Oak Elementary comprises 6 schools with combined enrollment of 1,666 students; Tierra Pacifica Charter is among them.

For racial and ethnic makeup, Tierra Pacifica Charter shows that 63% of the student body identifies as White. The remainder consists of 24% Hispanic, 7% multiracial, 2% Asian. That composition is broadly in line with Santa Cruz County as a whole.

On the resource side, Staff filings list 9 full-time-equivalent teachers, which works out to roughly 17.6:1 students per teacher. That figure is tighter than the state norm's 22.3:1 average. About 29% of enrolled students meet the income threshold for free or reduced-price lunch, which schools and policymakers use as a rough income-mix signal. Set against Santa Cruz County (around 52%), the school's rate is meaningfully below typical.

On a residual basis (actual vs predicted given the student mix), Tierra Pacifica Charter is in the bottom 10% of California public schools. The BeatsExpectations model predicts schools with this FRL share to land around 62.3%; Tierra Pacifica Charter posts 47.8%, -14.5 points below that line.

In the surrounding community, ACS estimates for Santa Cruz County put the typical household earns roughly $111,093 per year, 44% of adults hold a bachelor's degree or higher, and the poverty rate sits near 6%. In all, Santa Cruz County runs 83 public schools (combined enrollment of about 36,316 students), of which Tierra Pacifica Charter is one.

Nearest neighbor: Ocean Alternative Education Center, around 0.0 miles off. Counting just inside five miles, 8 other public schools cluster around Tierra Pacifica Charter. Among the 9 schools in that immediate cluster with test data (this one included), Tierra Pacifica Charter ranks 3rd on composite proficiency, ahead of the local average of 43.6%.

Tierra Pacifica Charter operates from a residential location. As a public charter, Tierra Pacifica Charter runs on public funding but with greater curricular and operational autonomy than a typical district school.

Over the past 7-year window. Looking back 7 years, enrollment at Tierra Pacifica Charter has ticked up 7%, going from 155 students in 2018 to 166 in 2025. Over the same period, the Asian share ticked down from 10% to 2%. The student-to-teacher ratio pulled in from 22.5:1 in 2018 to 17.6:1 today.

On allk12, posts here usually surface around pickup logistics, teacher feedback, and after-school programs. Members of the school community can share what they know.