Summary
Palo Verde Elementary serves 334 students in grades K–5 in Palo Alto, within the Palo Alto Unified district. Its 2025–26 proficiency rates were well above California’s in English language arts (ELA), math and science, but below the district’s in all three. The main concern is that results have fallen since 2022–23, leaving the school behind its district in every subject.
Compared with nearby Palo Alto Unified elementary schools, Palo Verde is around the middle in ELA and math, while science is its clearest local weakness. In 2025–26, its ELA rate was 76%, about 2 points below the nearby-school average of 78%; math was 78%, about 2 points below the 80% average. Science was 70%, about 8 points below the 77% average, and ranked third-lowest among nine schools. Math is the school’s strongest subject relative to the state: its 78% rate was 39 points above California’s 38%, compared with a 27-point ELA advantage and a 34-point science advantage. Its rates were 5 points below the district in ELA, 2 points below in math and 5 points below in science. Chronic absenteeism was 8%, lower than the district’s 10% and the state’s 18%, though four nearby schools had lower rates.
The decline since 2022–23 was 7 points in ELA, 9 in math and 5 in science; over the same period, state rates rose in each subject. SchoolDigger ranked Palo Verde 319th of 5,804 California schools, at the 95th percentile with five stars, in 2025–26. Its student-teacher ratio was 18.8 in 2024–25, compared with a nearby-school average of 19.7. The school reported 13% free/reduced lunch eligible in 2024–25, close to the 15% average among other Palo Alto Unified K–5 schools. SchoolDigger’s statewide measure for White Students was at the 69th percentile, 26 points below the school’s overall percentile; for Asian Students, it was at the 80th percentile, down 16 points from the prior year.
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