Christopher Dena Elementary vs Charles H. Kim Elementary

Charles H. Kim Elementary ranks #9 of 9,533 schools in California, compared to Christopher Dena Elementary's #279 — a gap that places Kim in the top 0.1% of the state while Dena sits in the top 3%. Their overall ratings reflect this: Kim scores 9.6/10 against Dena's 8.9/10, a 0.7-point difference that, in context of California's full distribution, represents a meaningful separation in measured school quality.

The academic score delta is the sharpest distinction between these two schools. Charles H. Kim Elementary earns a 9.5/10 in academics versus Christopher Dena Elementary's 7.6/10 — a 1.9-point gap that signals a substantial difference in tested proficiency outcomes. Growth scores tell a different story: both schools perform strongly, with Kim at 9.8/10 and Dena at 9.5/10, a near-negligible 0.3-point spread. Dena's strong growth score relative to its academic score suggests students there are making meaningful year-over-year gains from wherever they start.

Christopher Dena Elementary serves 337 students with a 94% free and reduced lunch rate; Charles H. Kim Elementary enrolls 472 students at 88% FRL. Both schools serve predominantly high-need populations, and the six-point FRL difference is modest. Student-teacher ratios are similar — Dena at 17.7:1 versus Kim at 18.2:1 — meaning classroom-level adult attention is roughly comparable at both campuses despite the enrollment gap.

The two schools diverge on grade span: Christopher Dena Elementary serves kindergarten through sixth grade, while Charles H. Kim Elementary runs kindergarten through fifth only. Families with a rising sixth-grader would face a middle school transition one year earlier at Kim. Both campuses sit 6.5 miles apart within Los Angeles, so geographic convenience will factor differently depending on a family's neighborhood, though neither school is the obvious proximity choice for every household in the city.