Ohlone Elementary, Palo Alto CA - Test Scores & Data

Original Research by School Decision on Ohlone Elementary

Ohlone Elementary serves kindergarten through fifth grade in the Palo Alto Unified School District, with an enrollment of about four hundred fifty students. The school draws from a highly affluent neighborhood where home values are substantially above the state benchmark and rent runs high relative to income. Only a small share of students qualify for free or reduced-price meals.

The student body is predominantly Asian, with a meaningful White population and smaller shares of Hispanic, multiracial, and other students. Data on English learner status and special education enrollment are not available in the school profile.

In the most recent state testing, Ohlone's proficiency rates reflect strong academic performance. In math, students in third through fifth grade showed proficiency around ninety percent or above. English language arts proficiency was somewhat lower, with third grade at seventy-eight percent and fourth and fifth grades near eighty-eight to eighty-nine percent. Fifth grade science proficiency came in above eighty percent. Across all tested subjects and grades, Ohlone's overall proficiency index places it in the top quartile relative to districts in Santa Clara County, a meaningful positioning for a school in a county with substantial variation in performance.

Palo Alto, the city where Ohlone sits, is a university town anchored by Stanford and a concentration of high-tech firms. The city is in active growth mode, with rezoning focused on adding housing, particularly in south Palo Alto along El Camino Real and San Antonio Road. Downtown remains low-rise and has seen little residential growth in recent years. The city's open space system and library network are extensive, and it has strong transit access through Caltrain, making walkability around the downtown and California Avenue corridor high. The Palo Alto Unified School District has undergone significant shifts in math curriculum and placement policy. A court ruling in early 2023 required the district to adopt a fairer, more transparent math placement process for students entering ninth grade. The district removed early tracking from its middle school math program, rolling out a standardized sequence starting in 2020. In 2025, after years of community debate, the district announced it would offer multivariable calculus on campus, reversing an earlier elimination of that course. These changes mean that acceleration and advanced course access work differently now than in prior years.

For families looking at Ohlone, the school offers a solid academic foundation with strong math results and above-grade-level overall proficiency. The affluent, college-educated neighborhood and high home values suggest a peer environment geared toward academic achievement. Parents may want to explore with the school how it approaches differentiation and support given the variation in English language arts proficiency between third grade and upper grades, and to understand current offerings in enrichment and acceleration for students advancing beyond grade-level work.

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Academic performance

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

Math

Grade 391%

School 91% · District 81% · ▲ 11 pts above district

▲ 49 pts above state median · ▲ 34 pts above county median

Grade 492%

School 92% · District 83% · ▲ 9 pts above district

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

Grade 591%

School 91% · District 81% · ▲ 10 pts above district

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

English language arts

Grade 378%

School 78% · District 77% · ▲ 1 pts above district

▲ 37 pts above state median · ▲ 25 pts above county median

Grade 489%

School 89% · District 82% · ▲ 7 pts above district

▲ 47 pts above state median · ▲ 33 pts above county median

Grade 588%

School 88% · District 84% · ▲ 4 pts above district

▲ 43 pts above state median · ▲ 31 pts above county median

Science

Grade 581%

School 81% · District 75% · ▲ 6 pts above district

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

This schoolPalo Alto Unified, 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.