Summary:
The Animo James B. Taylor Charter Middle is the sole school in the Animo James B. Taylor Charter Middle District, serving grades 6-8 with a total enrollment of 518 students. However, the school has consistently ranked in the bottom half of California middle schools, with a statewide ranking between 2,153 and 2,255 out of around 2,800 schools over the past three school years.
Academically, the school struggles, with proficiency rates in English Language Arts (ELA) and Mathematics significantly below the state averages across all grade levels and end-of-course assessments. For example, in the 2023-2024 school year, the school's ELA proficiency rates ranged from 25.52% to 33.76%, compared to the state averages of 45.82% to 47.19%. In Mathematics, the school's proficiency rates ranged from 12.66% to 17.97%, compared to the state averages of 31.57% to 34.31%. The school's Science proficiency rates, as measured by the CAST assessment, are also low, with only 14.29% of students proficient or better, compared to the state average of 28.95% for 8th grade.
Additionally, the school faces challenges with high chronic absenteeism, with a rate of 43.4% for the 2022-2023 school year, significantly higher than the state average. The school also has a very high percentage of students (97.1%) who qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, indicating a high level of economic disadvantage among the student population. With a relatively high student-teacher ratio of 27.5 to 1, the school may struggle to provide the individual attention and support needed to improve student outcomes.
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