Whenever I hear Realtors in the Mid Peninsula talk about property values and the current market sooner or later the subject of schools will enter the conversation and one of the most often repeated mantras is the excellence of the schools in San Carlos, Burlingame and Baywood School in San Mateo. Honestly, it’s rare for me to hear people touting Foster City schools…but they ought to because they’re uniformly excellent. Once again the State of California has released their Academic Performance Index (API) which is based on how well schools perform on a variety of tests. A score of 800 is considered excellent. Here’s how Foster City schools shake out versus the other areas:

Brewer Island (FC)       933

Baywood (SM)              928

Franklin (Bur)              924

Lincoln (Bur)               920

Foster City (FC)          919

Roosevelt (Bur)           910

Washington (Bur)        905

White Oaks (SC)          901

Arundel (SC)               897

Tierra Linda Mid (SC)   895

Bowditch Mid (FC)       880

Brittan Acres (SC)       879

Highlands (SM)           873

Audobon (FC)             861

Hmmm…Somehow I think Foster City not only is holding it’s own, but is in fact thriving when it comes to it’s schools. This is yet another factor in the preservation of value in real estate in this town.  

In September when the California Department of Education released the results of it’s STAR testing program several local schools measured very well on the scale called the Academic Performance Index(API). The API’s are a useful way to measure success in a given school and Foster City did extraordinarily well. I think it’s important to note that there are many other factors that make a good school, such as 1) Administration and Teachers, 2) Parental Involvement, 3) Facilities and 4) School specific programs. It’s amusing to me since many people I run into in Real Estate speak in reverential terms of the San Carlos schools and Baywood School in San Mateo as being the greatest things since sliced bread. Here’s an article that was in the San Mateo Daily Journal today about Baywood School:

DailyJournalArticle

Well, below are the API’s for Foster City Schools in comparison to San Mateo and San Carlos Schools.

Audobon School…857

Brewer Island School…923

Foster City School…912

Baywood School (SM)…930

Beresford School(SM)…792

Fiesta Gardens(SM)…762

George Hall(SM)…740

Highlands(SM)…875

Horrall(SM)…712

Parkside(SM)…780

Sunnybrae(SM)…787

Arundel(SC)…900

Brittan Acres(SC)…882

Heather(SC)…853

White Oaks(SC)…902

How about Middle Schools…Bowditch out performed all of the San Mateo middle schools, did better than Central Middle in San Carlos and was slightly under Terra Linda Middle in San Carlos.