One Hundred Ninth Street Elementary vs Charles H. Kim Elementary

Charles H. Kim Elementary sits at #9 of 9,533 California schools, placing it in the top 0.1% statewide. One Hundred Ninth Street Elementary ranks #546 of 9,533 — still a strong top-6% school, but the gap between these two Los Angeles elementaries is substantial. Both serve kindergarten through fifth grade, and both sit within the same large urban district, yet their overall ratings land at 9.6 for Charles H. Kim Elementary versus 8.6 for One Hundred Ninth Street Elementary — a full point apart on a 10-point scale.

The sharpest difference appears in academic proficiency. Charles H. Kim Elementary scores 9.5 out of 10 on academic achievement while One Hundred Ninth Street Elementary scores 6.3 — a 3.2-point gap that reflects meaningfully higher rates of grade-level mastery on state assessments. Growth tells a very different story: One Hundred Ninth Street Elementary earns a 9.7 growth score versus Charles H. Kim Elementary's 9.8, a near-identical result showing that students at both schools are advancing at exceptional rates relative to their starting points. One Hundred Ninth Street Elementary's high growth score against a lower academic baseline signals a school that is rapidly accelerating student trajectories despite serving a higher-need population.

On demographics and equity, One Hundred Ninth Street Elementary enrolls 330 students with 96% qualifying for free or reduced-price lunch. Charles H. Kim Elementary is larger at 472 students and has 88% of students on free or reduced lunch — still a high-need school by any measure, but 8 percentage points lower. Student-teacher ratios are essentially identical: 18.3:1 at One Hundred Ninth Street Elementary and 18.2:1 at Charles H. Kim Elementary, meaning class size is not a differentiating factor between the two schools.

Both schools serve KG–05 and are located 9.6 miles apart within Los Angeles. The grade span and instructional model are structurally the same, so the practical choice narrows to the academic proficiency gap — where Charles H. Kim Elementary holds a commanding advantage — weighed against One Hundred Ninth Street Elementary's equivalent growth momentum in a higher-poverty enrollment context.