Ohlone Elementary School

950 Amarillo Ave.

Palo Alto, CA 94303

    Ohlone School is one of eleven elementary schools in the Palo Alto Unified school District. As an officially-designated district alternative school rather than a neighborhood school, Ohlone serves families from throughout Palo Alto, Stanford, and Los Altos Hills, as well as families from East Palo Alto and Menlo Park who participate in the Voluntary Transfer Program. Attendance rates are high. Children are admitted to Ohlone via an equal access drawing (lottery) which takes place the January prior to September entrance. Once siblings and children participating in the Voluntary Transfer Program have been accommodated, all available kindergarten spaces are filled from the equal access drawing. Parents are required to attend an orientation session prior to making a commitment to Ohlone's guiding principles and practices. Out of 407 students (as of February 1997) 49.5% are girls and 50.5% are boys; 24.3% of the children represent racial or ethnic minorities (11.3% Asian-American, 6.8% Latino_American, 4.1% African American, .9% Filipino-American, .2% Native American, and .7% Pacific Islander). Collectively, Ohlone families speak more than 21 different languages at home in addition to English.

Students' Needs:

    Children in a Special Day Class for developmentally-delayed students participate regularly in schoolwide activities and take part in science, music, physical education, and cooking experiences with other classrooms; a number of children spend part of their days in mainstream classrooms using an inclusive model that is being developed at Ohlone. Traditionally, children from Room 9 help the children in Room 3 (EMH room) prepare for the Special Olympics. Other students with special needs have opportunities to work with a Resource Specialist, a Language/Speech specialist, a Reading specialist, an English Language Development specialist, primary language tutors for students whose first language is not English, and the School Psychologist and counseling intern.

Ohlone's Scores on California Standardized Tests

Scores range from 1-99. A score of 99 indicates that the school scored higher than 99 percent of the other public schools in California. Scores are from "McCormack's Guides '99."

School Safety:

    Ohlone Elementary has ten rules to make their school a safe and pleasant learning environment. They are:

1.    "Respect ourselves and each other."

2.    "Treat others as we would like to be treated."

3.    "Be caring, friendly, and nice to each other."

4.    "Include people in games and discontinue lockouts."

5.    "Be kind and considerate to plants and animals on the Farm and in classrooms."

6.    "Act safely and responsibly."

7.    "Respect school's and other people's property."

8.    "Solve problems and talk among ourselves before we turn to an adult for help."

9.    "Use common sense and make good decisions."

10.    "Trust our own judgment."

Ohlone Elementary School's Mission Statement:

"The basic goal of Ohlone school is to help each child acquire the tools of learning - reading, oral and written language, mathematics - in such a way that the child experiences a joy of learning, is able to use these tools to futher his or her learning, and has the desire to further his or her learning."

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