Vermont Avenue Elementary vs Charles H. Kim Elementary

Charles H. Kim Elementary holds an overall rating of 9.6/10 against Vermont Avenue Elementary's 8.8/10 — a 0.8-point gap that carries significant weight when you see the state context. Charles H. Kim Elementary ranks #9 out of 9,533 California elementary schools, placing it in the top 0.1% statewide. Vermont Avenue Elementary ranks #367 out of 9,533, which is still a strong top-4% finish — but the distance between these two schools in California's competitive ranking system is substantial for two campuses only 2.9 miles apart.

The academic score tells the sharpest story: Vermont Avenue Elementary scores 7.8/10 versus Charles H. Kim Elementary's 9.5/10 — a 1.7-point delta that reflects a meaningful gap in measured proficiency outcomes. Growth scores, by contrast, are nearly identical: Vermont Avenue Elementary posts 9.5/10 and Charles H. Kim Elementary 9.8/10, meaning both schools are accelerating student progress at an elite rate. Vermont Avenue Elementary is producing exceptional learning gains from its student population even where absolute proficiency levels sit lower — a signal of strong instructional quality that the overall gap can obscure.

Both schools serve a predominantly low-income population: Vermont Avenue Elementary at 90% free or reduced lunch and Charles H. Kim Elementary at 88%, a difference of just two percentage points. Charles H. Kim Elementary enrolls 472 students to Vermont Avenue Elementary's 356, and its student-teacher ratio of 18.2:1 is notably tighter than Vermont Avenue Elementary's 20.9:1 — nearly three fewer students per teacher on average, which tends to translate directly into more instructional attention per child. Both schools run kindergarten through fifth grade.

Both schools share an almost identical grade span (KG–05) and socioeconomic profile, which makes the academic score gap harder to attribute to demographics alone. Charles H. Kim Elementary's #9 state rank is the headline differentiator: for parents who prioritize proficiency benchmarks and statewide competitive standing, that ranking is rare at any income level. Vermont Avenue Elementary's 9.5/10 growth score signals that its students are making exceptional academic progress year over year, even if aggregate proficiency sits below its crosstown counterpart.