Summary:
Desert Knolls Elementary is a public elementary school in Apple Valley, California, serving 610 students in grades K-6. The school faces significant challenges, with high chronic absenteeism, low test scores, and a high concentration of students from low-income backgrounds.
Desert Knolls Elementary consistently performs below the Apple Valley Unified district and California state averages on Smarter Balanced Assessments for English Language Arts and Mathematics. In 2023-2024, only 11.78% of Desert Knolls students were proficient or better in ELA, compared to 27.01% for the district and 47.04% for the state. In Mathematics, only 13.13% of Desert Knolls students were proficient or better, compared to 16.12% for the district and 35.54% for the state. The school's chronic absenteeism rate has also risen significantly, from 12.7% in 2018-2019 to 56.4% in 2021-2022, much higher than the state and district averages.
Nearby schools, such as Phoenix Academy, Sitting Bull Academy, and Rio Vista School of Applied Learning, generally perform better than Desert Knolls Elementary on key metrics like test scores and chronic absenteeism rates. Additionally, Desert Knolls struggles to support its subgroups, with low rankings for African American, Hispanic, White, English Language Learner, Special Education, and Low Socioeconomic Status students. The school's statewide ranking has also steadily declined over the past several years, from 2 stars in 2014-2015 to 1 star in 2022-2023, indicating that its performance is not keeping pace with other schools in the state.
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Detail:
Public K-6
District:
Apple Valley Unified
SchoolDigger Rank:
5667th of 5,862 California Elementary Schools
Per Pupil Expenditures: $5,827
Students who attend Desert Knolls Elementary usually attend:
Student/teacher ratio: 22.4
Number of students: 584
Racial breakdown:
Hispanic:
58.9%
White:
24.0%
African American:
11.1%
more
Two or more races:
4.8%
Asian:
0.9%
Pacific Islander:
0.2%
Not Specified:
0.2%
Free/discounted lunch recipients: 76.9%
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