Orange County elementary and middle schools featured in U.S. News & World Report ranking

Elementary and middle schools across Orange County have earned spots on U.S. News & World Report’s latest rundown of quality campuses.

Much like its popular high school rankings, U.S. News’ analysis of elementary and middle schools is based on student proficiency and performance while factoring in socioeconomic profiles. Unlike the high school evaluations, however, the elementary and middle school versions only include statewide rankings with no national comparisons.

U.S. News says it looked at data from more than 100,000 schools as part of its review process. Elementary and middle school rankings were based on state assessment results in math and reading/language arts, weighing proficiency and performance scores in the context of socioeconomic demographics and modeled expectations.

“In other words, the top-ranked schools are all high-achieving and have succeeded at educating all their students,” U.S. News said. 

While it’s worth noting that rankings typically reflect a single perspective on educational quality and no methodology can fully capture all that a school has to offer, we spotted a handful of Orange County schools in the top 100 on both lists.

Featured among the notable achievers for elementary education were: Jack L. Weaver Elementary (No. 24), Richard Henry Lee Elementary (No. 72) and Francis Hopkinson Elementary (No. 78) from the Los Alamitos Unified School District; Ethan B. Allen Elementary (No. 42) from the Garden Grove Unified School District; Golden Elementary (No. 53) from the Placentia-Yorba Linda Unified School District; Roy O. Andersen Elementary (No. 68) from the Newport-Mesa Unified School District; Stonegate Elementary (No. 69) in the Irvine Unified School District; and Orchard Hills (No. 85) from Tustin Unified.

On the middle schools list, which included K-8 campuses, Oxford Academy from the Anaheim Union High School District led the way at No. 2. Irvine Unified had several sites in the top 100, including Vista Verde Middle School (No. 13), Beacon Park K-8 School (No. 36), Lakeside Middle School (No. 56), Rancho San Joaquin Middle School (No. 57), Sierra Vista Middle School (No. 60) and Jeffrey Trail Middle School (No. 102). 

Robert C. Fisler Elementary (No. 22) and Beechwood Elementary (No. 54) in the Fullerton School District were also among the top 100 middle schools, along with the Orange County School of the Arts (No. 42); Ladera Ranch Middle (No. 48) in the Capistrano Unified School District; and Oxford Preparatory Academy campuses in Mission Viejo (No. 53) and Lake Forest (No. 89).

Rankings were compiled using publicly available information from the U.S. Department of Education. Schools serving specialized populations or with insufficient assessment data were excluded, as were private schools.

U.S. News posted its 2025 Best Elementary and Middle Schools Rankings on Nov. 13. You can access the complete rankings and learn more about the outlet’s methodology through the U.S. News & World Report website.

Did we miss any local schools in California’s top 100? Email us at communications@ocde.us.