Foothill Elementary

Foothill Elementary is a K-5 public school serving 278 students in the highly-regarded Saratoga Union Elementary district, which is ranked among the top in the state.

By most statewide measures, Foothill is an excellent school with strong test scores and a 5-star rating, but within its own district, it consistently performs below its two sister schools, Argonaut Elementary and Saratoga Elementary, in English and math proficiency. This is notable because Foothill has a significant advantage with a lower student-teacher ratio of 18.5:1 compared to over 22:1 at those schools. Furthermore, Foothill's chronic absenteeism rate, while improved, remains higher than its district peers, and its statewide ranking has shown a recent decline from the 99th to the 94th percentile.

Interesting patterns emerge when looking at different student groups; for instance, the school excels in supporting students from low socioeconomic backgrounds, ranking in the 98th percentile statewide for that subgroup. However, performance has varied significantly across grade levels and among different groups over recent years. Compared to high-performing schools in neighboring districts like John Muir Elementary (Cupertino Union) or Nelson S. Dilworth (Cupertino Union), Foothill spends more per student but achieves comparable or slightly lower academic results, presenting a unique profile of high resources and solid, but not leading, outcomes in a very competitive area.