City Terrace Elementary vs Charles H. Kim Elementary

Charles H. Kim Elementary ranks #9 of 9,533 California schools, placing it in the top 0.1% statewide. City Terrace Elementary, ranked #356 of 9,533, still lands in the top 4% — a genuinely strong result — but the gap between the two schools is substantial. Charles H. Kim Elementary scores 9.6/10 overall against City Terrace Elementary's 8.8/10, an 0.8-point difference that reflects a meaningful performance divide between two schools serving the same grade band, KG–05, just 7.9 miles apart in Los Angeles.

On academics, City Terrace Elementary earns a 9.0/10 while Charles H. Kim Elementary earns a 9.5/10 — a half-point gap that narrows the distance somewhat. Where the schools diverge most sharply is growth: Charles H. Kim Elementary scores 9.8/10 on growth versus City Terrace Elementary's 8.4/10, a 1.4-point delta. Growth scores measure how much students advance relative to academic peers year over year, so that spread suggests Charles H. Kim Elementary is accelerating students considerably faster regardless of where they start.

Charles H. Kim Elementary enrolls 472 students compared to City Terrace Elementary's 332, making it the larger campus. Both schools run nearly identical student-teacher ratios — 18.2:1 at Charles H. Kim Elementary versus 18.4:1 at City Terrace Elementary — so class-size experience is effectively the same. On free and reduced-price lunch eligibility, Charles H. Kim Elementary serves a higher-need population at 88% versus City Terrace Elementary's 75%. The fact that Charles H. Kim Elementary posts superior academic and growth numbers while serving a more economically disadvantaged student body makes its performance particularly notable.

Both schools cover the same grade span, KG through 5th, so families are making a like-for-like comparison at the program level. Neither school has differentiated magnet or gifted tracks reflected in the available data. The distinction comes down entirely to measured outcomes: Charles H. Kim Elementary's growth advantage of 1.4 points and its top-10 state ranking set it apart from City Terrace Elementary in ways that are concrete and consistent across multiple scoring dimensions.