The top reported proficiency rate is 73% in English language arts. The lowest is 59% in Science.
Original Research by School Decision on Edith Landels Elementary
Edith Landels Elementary sits on West Dana Street in Mountain View, a compact Silicon Valley city defined by the Google and Intuit campuses, a walkable downtown on Castro Street, and one of the most expensive housing markets in the country. The school serves kindergarten through fifth grade within the Mountain View Whisman School District.
On the most recent California state assessments, Landels students performed well above the statewide median. Reading and language arts proficiency across the tested grades runs in the low-to-mid seventies, and math proficiency sits in the low-to-mid sixties, with third grade coming in strongest and fifth grade slightly lower in both subjects. Fifth-grade science results fall just below the math range. Among schools and districts in Santa Clara County, Landels lands above the midpoint on an overall proficiency index, which is a meaningful position given how many high-performing schools populate this county. Only one year of data was available, so trend information is not yet possible.
The school draws a genuinely diverse group of students. Hispanic and Asian families each represent roughly a third of enrollment, white students make up about a quarter, and students of two or more races add a meaningful additional share. A modest share of students qualifies for free or reduced-price meals, well below typical urban school averages. Data on English learner counts and students with individualized education programs was not reported in the data available.
Because Landels ends at fifth grade and California does not administer state assessments to kindergartners through second graders, the testing picture covers only grades three through five. There is no graduation rate for an elementary school; that measure simply does not apply. Chronic absenteeism data was also not available.
The broader Mountain View Whisman district is navigating a real fiscal challenge. Local property tax revenue, which is the district's primary funding source, grew only marginally in the most recent year after several years of stronger gains. The board responded with a substantial round of budget cuts, eliminating a meaningful number of full-time positions, reducing custodial services, and freezing administrator pay. Families should ask the school directly how these reductions have affected staffing and services at Landels specifically. At the same time, the district passed a facilities bond in 2020 that funds campus security upgrades, new classroom space, solar panels, and staff housing. And in 2024 the board adopted a new literacy curriculum built around the science of reading, alongside a multi-year math curriculum review now in the piloting phase, with full implementation planned for 2027-28. These instructional shifts are active right now, so parents with questions about how reading is taught or which math materials classrooms are currently using would do well to ask.
Mountain View itself is expensive by any national measure. Home values in the area around the school are dramatically higher than the California median, which is itself well above the national median. Rents follow a similar pattern, and the gap between renting and owning in this zip code is wide. The city is also in an extended period of housing construction, with large-scale residential development planned in the North Bayshore and East Whisman districts and recent approvals for new projects on commercial corridors. Families weighing enrollment here are generally doing so in the context of a high-cost, competitive real estate environment.
The neighborhood itself offers some genuinely useful amenities. The downtown transit hub connects Caltrain, the VTA light rail, and bus lines. The Stevens Creek Trail links Shoreline at Mountain View, a large bayfront park with an amphitheater and wildlife refuge, into residential areas. Castro Street functions as a real neighborhood main street, with a weekly farmers market and active street life, though the El Camino Real corridor nearby is car-dependent. Program information specific to Landels was not available in the data, so a conversation with the school office would be the right next step for families interested in enrichment, support services, or after-school offerings.
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