Sleepy Hollow Elementary, Orinda CA

Original Research by School Decision on Sleepy Hollow Elementary

Sleepy Hollow Elementary is a small K-5 school in Orinda, a prosperous hillside suburb east of San Francisco in Contra Costa County. The school serves an enrollment of about three hundred seventy students spread across six grades, with the largest cohorts in kindergarten and fourth grade and smaller numbers in fifth grade.

The student body is predominantly White and multiethnic, with a substantial share identifying as White, a meaningful share as multiracial, and smaller shares as Asian, Hispanic, Black, and American Indian. Very few students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, reflecting the affluent community. Specific data on special education enrollment and English learner status were not available.

Academically, Sleepy Hollow shows strong proficiency in both English language arts and mathematics across tested grades. In the most recent assessment year, the school's overall proficiency across tested subjects and grade levels places it in the top quartile relative to districts in Contra Costa County. Within the school, fourth-grade students show a dip in both ELA and math proficiency compared to third and fifth grades, though proficiency remains solid. Fifth-grade science proficiency is slightly lower than language and math but represents tested performance at that grade level. ELA proficiency is consistently higher than math across grades, and kindergarten through second grade are not assessed under California's state tests.

The school sits in Orinda's largely residential, tree-covered landscape, in a community oriented around family life and quiet neighborhoods rather than a dense commercial corridor. Housing values in the area are very high, with median home prices well above state and national benchmarks, and rental costs reflecting a similarly expensive market. The town has slow population growth and is undergoing significant zoning changes; a new housing element approved in late 2025 aims to increase housing density significantly, particularly downtown and in gateway areas. Orinda functions as a commuter town, with residents working across the Bay Area. The Orinda Union School District is one of the area's largest employers and is supported by voter-approved parcel taxes that have passed repeatedly to fund teacher recruitment, retention, and core academics in STEM, reading, writing, arts, and music.

Sleepy Hollow reflects its community: a small, quiet, academically solid elementary school serving an economically secure and predominantly White neighborhood. A parent considering this school should expect strong foundational academics, a peer environment of relative uniformity, and a setting shaped by the parcel-tax-funded resource base that characterizes district schools here.

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Academic performance

How students perform on state tests, by grade, set against the district.

Math

Grade 390%

School 90% · District 89%

▲ 47 pts above state median · ▲ 46 pts above county median

Grade 478%

School 78% · District 85% · ▼ 8 pts below district

▲ 40 pts above state median · ▲ 38 pts above county median

Grade 589%

School 89% · District 88% · ▲ 1 pts above district

▲ 58 pts above state median · ▲ 58 pts above county median

English language arts

Grade 393%

School 93% · District 87% · ▲ 6 pts above district

▲ 52 pts above state median · ▲ 52 pts above county median

Grade 478%

School 78% · District 84% · ▼ 6 pts below district

▲ 35 pts above state median · ▲ 35 pts above county median

Grade 590%

School 90% · District 92% · ▼ 2 pts below district

▲ 45 pts above state median · ▲ 43 pts above county median

Science

Grade 576%

School 76% · District 79% · ▼ 3 pts below district

▲ 48 pts above state median · ▲ 45 pts above county median

This schoolOrinda Union, same grade

Graduation rate (ACGR) reflects the federally published Adjusted Cohort Graduation Rate for the most recent year available. We refresh this data annually at the close of each academic year in June. The federal source publishes a banded rate (for example, "90-94%") instead of an exact number for cohorts small enough to risk identifying individual students. The state distribution chart, where shown, plots every school in the state with a published rate or band; schools whose rate is federally suppressed are excluded. Where the federal source publishes a band rather than an exact rate, the school is placed within its band using a stable, ID-derived offset, so its position is consistent across visits.