James Franklin Smith Elementary

James Franklin Smith Elementary is a medium-sized K-5 school in San Jose, California, operated by Evergreen Elementary. The school caters to 595 students in grades K through 6. By comparison, California's public schools average about 465 students each, so James Franklin Smith Elementary sits 28% larger than that benchmark.

Evergreen Elementary runs 16 schools in total, collectively educating 8,464 students. James Franklin Smith Elementary is one of those campuses.

Looking at the student body, James Franklin Smith Elementary records that Asian students make up the majority at 74%; the rest looks like 11% Hispanic, 8% multiracial, 6% White. By comparison, Santa Clara County as a whole is about 41% Asian, so the school skews noticeably more Asian than its surroundings.

Looking at the economic backdrop, The school employs 25 full-time-equivalent teachers, for a student-teacher ratio near 24.3:1. Statewide, the average ratio sits near 22.3:1, putting James Franklin Smith Elementary higher than the state norm the norm. About 10% of enrolled students meet the income threshold for free or reduced-price lunch, a commonly cited indicator of low-income enrollment. That share is below Santa Clara County's rate of about 37%.

Adjusting for the school's free-and-reduced-lunch share, James Franklin Smith Elementary performs roughly as the BeatsExpectations model predicts for a school with this FRL share. The predicted value is around 73.5%, the actual is 79.0%, a residual of +5.5 points.

In the surrounding community, community-level numbers for Santa Clara County indicate median household earnings sit near $164,281, about 57% of the adult population holds a bachelor's degree or above, and census figures put the poverty rate at about 4%. Across Santa Clara County's 412 public schools (combined enrollment of about 230,059 students), James Franklin Smith Elementary is one campus in the mix.

The closest other public school is Cadwallader Elementary, roughly 0.6 miles away. 8 of the 8 nearest public schools sit inside a five-mile radius. On composite proficiency, James Franklin Smith Elementary comes 2nd of 9 in the immediate cluster, above the nearby-schools average of 58.6%.

James Franklin Smith Elementary operates from a high-density location.

Over the past 7-year window. James Franklin Smith Elementary's enrollment has edged down 13% since 2018, when it stood at 683 (now 595). Over the same period, the Asian share declined from 80% to 74%. Class-load math has tightened: from 27.3:1 in 2018 to 24.3:1 in 2025.

Within the allk12 community for this school, posts here usually surface around fundraisers, lost-and-found posts, and report-card season. Anyone with firsthand experience at this school can post or comment.