The top reported proficiency rate is 36% in English language arts. The lowest is 16% in Science.
Original Research by School Decision on Lomita Park Elementary
Lomita Park Elementary sits on Santa Helena Avenue in San Bruno's historic Lomita Park neighborhood, a stretch of older residential blocks that predates the postwar suburban buildout of the city's western hills. The school serves kindergarten through fifth grade and is part of the Millbrae Elementary School District, a small district operating a handful of schools across San Bruno and Millbrae. The campus itself has been publicly identified by the district as an aging, windowless facility — one of the explicit targets of a recently approved school facilities bond — so families should expect a physical plant that has not yet been modernized, with renovation work ahead.
On California's statewide assessments, Lomita Park's results are below the midpoint among districts in San Mateo County. Reading across the grades that were tested, math proficiency ranges from a middling level in fourth grade down to a noticeably low rate in fifth grade, while English language arts follows a similar arc, with fourth grade posting the strongest results and third and fifth grades sitting at lower levels. Fifth-grade science scores are particularly low. The school's combined proficiency index places it in the bottom quartile relative to districts in San Mateo County, which is a county with many well-resourced suburban districts, so that positioning is worth taking seriously. Only one year of statewide data is available here, so there is no trend line to characterize whether results are improving or holding steady. A parent who wants to understand where individual grade cohorts stand would do well to ask the school directly about any internal progress measures.
Nearly half of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, which makes Lomita Park a genuinely economically mixed school by Bay Area standards. The student population is predominantly Latino, with meaningful Asian and white enrollment and a smaller number of students identifying as multiracial, Pacific Islander, or Black. Data on English learner enrollment and students with IEPs was not available in the records reviewed, so those are gaps a prospective family may want to raise with the school or district.
The district is in a period of deliberate change on two fronts. A bond measure approved by voters in late 2024 will fund classroom upgrades, lab renovations, roof repairs, and the rebuilding of aging facilities including Lomita Park itself, financed through a new annual property tax levy on assessed value. A separate parcel tax, renewed and increased in 2023, generates steady annual funding directed toward STEM instruction and restoring art and music programs. Both measures carry ongoing property tax obligations that families buying or renting nearby would absorb. The district also adopted a new districtwide math curriculum in spring 2025, aligned to California's updated mathematics framework, with teacher training beginning in August of that year. That shift in how math is taught is recent enough that its effect on test results has not yet shown up in available data.
San Bruno itself is a residential peninsula suburb with Caltrain and BART access, a walkable downtown strip along San Mateo Avenue, and a large community college at its edge. Housing costs here are substantially above the California state median and dramatically above national benchmarks, with rents consuming a large share of a typical household's income. The city is on a notable development arc: the former Tanforan mall site adjacent to the BART station is the subject of a major transit-oriented redevelopment proposal, and planning documents call for a significant addition of housing units over the coming years. That growth context is relevant for families thinking about neighborhood change over the elementary school years.
No information was available on specific program offerings, staffing ratios, attendance patterns, or discipline data at Lomita Park, so those dimensions of the school remain opaque from the available records. The district's stated investment in facilities and programs points toward a school in transition, but the academic results currently on the books are modest, and a family weighing this school would want to understand the district's concrete timeline for the Lomita Park rebuild and how instruction is being supported in the meantime.
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