Beach Park Elementary, Foster City CA

Original Research by School Decision on Beach Park Elementary

Beach Park Elementary serves kindergarten through fifth grade in Foster City, a master-planned waterfront community on the San Francisco Peninsula. The school enrolls a small student body that skews heavily toward affluent, college-educated households and Asian families, with a substantial plurality of students from Asian backgrounds and a more modest representation of white and Hispanic students. Very few students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, and no data on English learners or special education enrollment is available.

The school sits in an area of high housing costs and household wealth. Foster City itself is an engineered suburban enclave built around lagoons and canals, quiet and family-centered, with extensive parks and waterfront amenities but no traditional downtown or strong car-free walkability. Major employers like Visa, Gilead Sciences, and Electronics for Imaging anchor a knowledge-economy base. Families considering Beach Park should know the broader district context: in spring 2021, the San Mateo-Foster City School District eliminated its early-acceleration math track in favor of a single heterogeneous sixth-grade math class, an equity-driven restructuring that drew parent pushback. Advanced students no longer track separately, though pathways to algebra by eighth grade have widened. A property-tax-backed bond measure passed in 2020 and funded facility improvements including a rebuilt gym and academic core at the middle school. A new bond measure is on the June 2026 ballot. The district is also managing sustained enrollment decline and tightening finances; the current parcel tax expires in 2027-28, and renewal is planned.

On state assessments, Beach Park shows a mixed academic picture. In mathematics, students in the tested grades perform above the state midpoint overall. Fourth grade shows strength, while fifth grade performance is notably lower. In English language arts, proficiency is modest across the school, with fifth grade performing below third and fourth grades. Science proficiency at fifth grade is weak. Overall proficiency, averaging across tested subjects and grades, places the school above the midpoint among districts in San Mateo County. Because this is an elementary school serving only early grades, state testing is limited to grades three through five; no trend data across prior years is available. A parent may want to ask the school directly about its reading and science instructional approaches, particularly for upper elementary, and about how it addresses the performance dip in fifth grade.

The school's enrollment has tapered as students advance through the grade sequence: kindergarten is the largest cohort, while fourth and fifth grades are considerably smaller, which is typical in schools serving only through elementary. The racial and ethnic composition is relatively homogeneous compared to many Bay Area schools, reflecting both the community and broader patterns of residential clustering by income and background in this area. Most families appear to have strong resources and high educational attainment.

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Academic performance

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

Math

Grade 377%

School 77% · District 50% · ▲ 27 pts above district

▲ 34 pts above state median · ▲ 18 pts above county median

Grade 488%

School 88% · District 52% · ▲ 35 pts above district

▲ 50 pts above state median · ▲ 28 pts above county median

Grade 569%

School 69% · District 50% · ▲ 19 pts above district

▲ 39 pts above state median · ▲ 16 pts above county median

English language arts

Grade 368%

School 68% · District 43% · ▲ 25 pts above district

▲ 27 pts above state median · ▲ 14 pts above county median

Grade 470%

School 70% · District 51% · ▲ 20 pts above district

▲ 28 pts above state median · ▲ 11 pts above county median

Grade 562%

School 62% · District 54% · ▲ 8 pts above district

▲ 16 pts above state median · ▼ 2 pts below county median

Science

Grade 539%

School 39% · District 43% · ▼ 4 pts below district

▲ 10 pts above state median · ▼ 9 pts below county median

This schoolSan Mateo-Foster City, 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.