Two tracts, two elementary schools, one high school.

Getting the districts right

There is no "Highlands school district."

You will see the phrase, including in the Recreation District's own FAQ, used loosely to mean the attendance area. It is not a district. Highlands Elementary is part of the San Mateo-Foster City School District, and the high school sits in the San Mateo Union High School District. Getting this right matters when you are looking up boundaries, enrolment windows or transfer policy, because searching for a district that does not exist is a good way to get bad information.

Eichler was selling this in 1965

The Yorktown brochure records the same feeder pattern: "Highlands Elementary School: approximately 5-minute walk… Borel Junior High and Aragon High (bus transport)." The circa-1959 brochure goes further and advertises a junior high school site on Bunker Hill Drive and an elementary school within two blocks. Sixty years on, the walk to Highlands Elementary is still the walk.

Why we don't publish school ratings

We could. Third-party ratings for all four schools are a few clicks away and they do differ. We are choosing not to reproduce them here, for two reasons.

The first is professional. We are licensed agents, and steering — directing buyers toward or away from neighbourhoods on the basis of characteristics associated with protected classes — is unlawful. School ratings are one of the most common ways it happens, usually without anyone intending it. We will give you the facts of assignment; the judgement is yours to make.

The second is that the ratings are a snapshot of a composite methodology that changes, applied to schools whose enrolment changes, and they are stale the moment anyone prints them on a website. A number we published today would be quoted back at us in three years.

Go to the source, and visit. The districts publish attendance boundaries and enrolment information; the state publishes performance data; the schools themselves will show you around. All three are better than a number on a real estate page.