Herbert Hoover Elementary

Herbert Hoover Elementary is an elementary-level community of intimate scale in Palo Alto, California, one of the schools within Palo Alto Unified, serveing 389 students in grades K through 5.

Herbert Hoover Elementary is one of 20 schools operated by Palo Alto Unified, a district that instructs 10,187 students overall.

In terms of who attends, Herbert Hoover Elementary lists that the largest single group is Asian, at 77% of enrollment. Other groups include 8% White, 8% multiracial, 5% Hispanic. The wider county runs roughly 41% Asian, putting the school's mix visibly more Asian than the area baseline.

On the resource side, Staff filings list 20 full-time-equivalent teachers, which works out to roughly 19.5:1 students per teacher. The state averages around 22.3:1, so this campus is tighter than the state norm typical. Around 7% of the student body qualifies for free or reduced-price meals, which schools and policymakers use as a rough income-mix signal. That share is noticeably below Santa Clara County's rate of about 37%.

On a residual basis (actual vs predicted given the student mix), Herbert Hoover Elementary ranks in the top 10% of California public schools. The BeatsExpectations model, a per-state regression of composite proficiency on FRL share, predicts schools with this student profile to land around 75.5%; Herbert Hoover Elementary posts 93.5%, +18.0 points above that line.

In the area at large, ACS estimates for Santa Clara County put median household earnings sit near $164,281, roughly 57% of adults have completed at least a four-year degree, and roughly 4% of residents live below the federal poverty line. Across Santa Clara County's 412 public schools (combined enrollment of about 230,059 students), Herbert Hoover Elementary is one campus in the mix.

Jane Lathrop Stanford Middle is the nearest neighboring public school, about 0.2 miles from this campus. 8 of the 8 nearest public schools sit inside a five-mile radius. Ranking that nearby cluster on reported proficiency puts Herbert Hoover Elementary at 1st of 8; the average score across the group is 72.7%.

The school occupies a city-core site.

Five-year trend. Over the past 7-year window, the student count changed only slightly: 397 students in 2018 compared to 389 in 2025. Asian enrollment moved from 66% to 77% across the same window. Class-load math has fell: from 20.9:1 in 2018 to 19.5:1 in 2025.

In the discussion threads here, posts here usually surface around open house dates, ride-share offers, and field-trip permission slips. Contributors range from current parents to recent graduates and teachers.