Zela Davis

Zela Davis operates as a large elementary campus in Hawthorne, California, part of Hawthorne. Current enrollment sits at 843 students spanning grades K through 5. Enrollment runs roughly 81% larger than the state mean of about 465.

Hawthorne runs 11 schools in total, collectively educating 6,904 students. Zela Davis is one of those campuses.

Demographically, Zela Davis reports that the largest single group is Hispanic, at 64% of enrollment. Other groups include 28% Black, 3% Asian, 3% multiracial. By comparison, Los Angeles County as a whole is about 48% Hispanic, so the school skews considerably more Hispanic than its surroundings.

Looking at school resources, On paper, Zela Davis has 32 full-time-equivalent teachers, translating to a class-load average of around 26.3:1. That figure is higher than the state norm's 22.3:1 average. About 94% 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 Los Angeles County (around 70%), the school's rate is north of typical.

On a residual basis (actual vs predicted given the student mix), Zela Davis performs roughly as the BeatsExpectations model predicts for a school with this FRL share. The predicted value is around 23.7%, the actual is 32.7%, a residual of +9.0 points.

In the area at large, community-level numbers for Los Angeles County indicate the typical household earns roughly $90,112 per year, about 36% of the adult population holds a bachelor's degree or above, and the poverty rate sits near 10%. In all, Los Angeles County runs 2244 public schools (combined enrollment of about 1,265,907 students), of which Zela Davis is one.

Bud Carson Middle is the nearest neighboring public school, about 0.3 miles from this campus. 8 of the 8 nearest public schools sit inside a five-mile radius. On composite proficiency, Zela Davis comes 4th of 7 in the immediate cluster, above the nearby-schools average of 32.6%.

Geographically, the school is in an outer-ring area.

Trend over the last 7 years. Zela Davis's enrollment has contracted 28% since 2018, when it stood at 1,173 (now 843). Class-load math has grew: from 24.7:1 in 2018 to 26.3:1 in 2025.

Inside the community feed, posts here usually surface around science fair prep, picture-day reminders, and bus-route questions. Contributors range from current parents to recent graduates and teachers.