Twenty-Fourth Street Elementary vs Virginia Road Elementary

Twenty-Fourth Street Elementary and Virginia Road Elementary sit 1.7 miles apart in Los Angeles and compete at the very top of California's elementary school rankings. Virginia Road Elementary earns a 9.3/10 overall rating and ranks #79 of 9,533 California schools, while Twenty-Fourth Street Elementary rates 9.2/10 and ranks #118 of 9,533 — both schools sitting in the top 1.5% statewide, with Virginia Road holding a narrow but meaningful positional edge.

Academically, Virginia Road Elementary scores 8.4/10 versus Twenty-Fourth Street Elementary's 8.2/10 — a 0.2-point delta that mirrors the overall gap. Both schools share an identical growth score of 9.9/10, meaning students at each campus are making exceptional year-over-year academic gains relative to peers. The near-perfect growth scores indicate that both schools are highly effective at moving students forward regardless of starting point, making academic trajectory essentially a draw for families choosing on that dimension.

The most concrete structural difference is enrollment: Twenty-Fourth Street Elementary serves 454 students while Virginia Road Elementary serves just 209 — less than half the population. Virginia Road's student-teacher ratio is 19.0:1 compared to Twenty-Fourth Street's 19.7:1, a modest but real difference in class density. Both schools serve student populations with very high economic need — Twenty-Fourth Street Elementary at 96% free and reduced lunch eligibility, Virginia Road Elementary at 94% — suggesting both campuses have built strong academic performance despite significant resource challenges shared across the community.

The two schools diverge on grade span: Twenty-Fourth Street Elementary runs kindergarten through fourth grade, while Virginia Road Elementary extends through fifth grade. For families planning to stay in the same building for a full elementary cycle, Virginia Road's KG–05 configuration avoids a mid-elementary school transition that Twenty-Fourth Street's KG–04 structure requires. This single structural difference may outweigh the marginal rating gap for families with younger children planning a multi-year horizon.