The 2025 California academic achievement scores tell several stories about Orinda’s elementary and middle school students.
By the numbers, it’s a tale of continued excellence, as Orinda students outpace statewide peers by up to 40 percentage points across the three areas measured. In addition, there is incremental improvement year-over-year for most grade levels.
But troubling grade level and gender gaps in performance remain as students still experience the lingering effects of the pandemic.
The California Assessment of Student Performance and Progress tests, administered each spring and released in October, look at three topics: English, mathematics and science proficiency for students in grades three through eight. (With few exceptions, all designated students must participate.)
Unlike students nationwide who remain up to a half grade behind their pre-pandemic performances, Orinda’s students have largely recovered, but some grade levels appear to have been hit harder and are taking longer to improve.
Overall, English language arts scores increased over last year by one percent, with 87% of students meeting or exceeding statewide standards. That’s still below the 2019 rate of 88%. But third and eighth grade achievement scores declined year-over-year, and only grades five, six and seven equaled or improved over pre-pandemic English scores.
Compared to nearby schools with similar demographics, however, Orinda’s English scores look exceptional, outperforming Lafayette, Moraga and Walnut Creek elementary schools by up to 28 percentage points and beating out the middle schools in Lafayette, Moraga, Walnut Creek and Piedmont by four to 18 points.
“We have had a major focus on ELA (English language arts) and literacy,” Superintendent Aida Glimme said. “We implemented brand new curriculum and phonics. We’ve changed how we teach reading and reading comprehension … trained every single teacher. It’s been a huge focus for the last couple of years.”
But the decline in some scores over the past year was a point of concern, especially because it appeared to be unique to Orinda.
Glimme said virtually all schools’ academic achievements suffered during the pandemic, but in the last year that wasn’t the case for most.
“But when you are so high scoring to start with, it is hard to get higher. And we’re talking about a couple kids here, a couple of kids there,” she said. “Those students might affect the scores for any given class.”
Orinda schools also outpaced the comparable schools in math with 83% of students at or above the standards, but district scores are still three percentage points below pre-pandemic level.
Grade eight math performance plummeted 11% from last year and is down an alarming 13% from pre-pandemic levels. Only grades five, six and seven scored at or above pre-pandemic levels.
Acknowledging her concern, Glimme said, “Now we’re going to start looking at new materials for math, bringing that along. That’s going to be a major focus.”
Science scores also raised concerns.
The California Science Test was administered this year to fifth and eighth graders. Fifth grade scores showed significant post-pandemic improvement, but eighth grade scores plunged to 13% below pre-pandemic levels – with over half of that loss occurring between 2024
and 2025.
One factor might be that, unlike the English and math components of the achievement tests, the science test has been revamped.
“The pre-pandemic test and the current science test are two different tests,” said Glimme. “The entire test shortened. It changed. It’s not like comparing apples to apples.”
Glimme acknowledged, however, that the drop in science achievement scores in Orinda was not apparent at comparable schools.
“That is something that we’re working on here at OIS (Orinda’s middle school),” Glimme said. “We immediately [looked at] curriculum [and] to our surprise, we don’t have a cohesive curriculum adopted at our science level in eighth grade… there’s no actual textbook that every child gets. I think that’s huge.”
The achievement scores also show a significant – and widening – gender gap in both math and science. In 2019, boys and girls scored equally well in math with 85% at or exceeding standards. This year, girls are three percentage points behind their male counterparts. The science score gender gap for eighth graders is double what it was in 2019.
“I was a little shocked,” Glimme said. “Why? Because we looked at how those girls do now at Miramonte, and they are surpassing the boys.”
Surprisingly, the differences are not showing up in girls’ middle school grades.
“Their grades show lots of A’s – they’re doing well, so something’s not translating” Glimme said. “The teachers aren’t doing them any favors by giving them a grade.”
Glimme said the district is taking some significant actions based on these findings.
“This year, we have a new grading policy,” she said. “You can’t grade on behavior. You can’t grade on extra credit. It has to be, do you actually know the material?”
She also pointed to a program implemented at Glorietta called WIN (What I Need) that will be expanded to all schools this coming year. Grade level teams at each school will assess all students and identify areas that need help – as well as find ways to accelerate the performance of high-achieving students.
“For that period, whether it is 30 or 40 minutes, this is what’s happening, and it is what you need, and you’re getting it in this small group, supporting you to improve. That’s the other piece of targeted intervention,” Glimme said.
Despite the questions raised by the scores, Glimme is upbeat about the district’s performance and trajectory.
“I think we’re heading in the right direction,” she said. “We do have some gaps, but again, when you look at our overall scores, [we’re] really, really high achieving. It’s just looking at who and how do we support all students.”
