Gates Street Elementary vs Third Street Elementary

Gates Street Elementary and Third Street Elementary are both Los Angeles kindergarten-through-fifth-grade schools, but they sit at strikingly different positions in California's statewide rankings. Third Street Elementary ranks #8 of 9,533 California schools — placing it in the top 0.1 percent — while Gates Street Elementary ranks #284, which is still an elite top-3 percent position statewide. The overall rating gap is 0.7 points, with Third Street Elementary scoring 9.6/10 against Gates Street Elementary's 8.9/10, a meaningful difference at this level of the scale.

The sharpest divergence between these two schools is academic proficiency. Third Street Elementary earns a perfect 10.0/10 academic score, while Gates Street Elementary scores 8.2/10 — an 1.8-point gap that reflects a substantial difference in measured student achievement. Growth scores are closer: Third Street Elementary posts 9.9/10 versus Gates Street Elementary's 9.4/10, a 0.5-point difference indicating that both schools are strong at accelerating students from where they start, though Third Street Elementary edges ahead there too.

The demographic profiles of these two schools diverge significantly. Gates Street Elementary serves 461 students with 93 percent qualifying for free or reduced-price lunch, indicating a predominantly low-income community. Third Street Elementary enrolls 691 students — 230 more — with a 43 percent free and reduced lunch rate, a 50-point gap that reflects a substantially more economically mixed population. Notably, Gates Street Elementary's student-teacher ratio of 20.0:1 is lower than Third Street Elementary's 22.3:1, meaning Gates Street Elementary students have more individual adult contact time despite serving a higher-need population.

Both schools serve grades KG through 05, so families are comparing equivalent grade spans. The 7.4-mile separation between the two schools means location will be a practical factor for most families. Third Street Elementary's combination of a #8 state rank and a perfect academic score makes it one of the most exceptional elementary schools in California by any measure, while Gates Street Elementary's #284 statewide rank demonstrates strong outcomes within a community that faces considerably greater economic challenges.