Where Do I Find Information About Schools?

By Rebecca Williamson · March 23rd, 2009

San Mateo County School

Where Do I Find Information About San Mateo County Schools?

One of the factors that affect property values is the strength of the public schools. Even if your children are grown or if you aren’t planning on having any children, it is still a good idea to take a look at the schools in the areas you are looking to move. As we’ve said before, the best time to think about selling your house is before you buy it. Properties that are in better performing school districts will sell faster and fetch a higher price.

Families with children should pay close attention to the schools in the area, especially if you are planning to send your children to a public school. There are a few sites that provides detailed information about each individual school, the district and the students.

GreatSchools

GreatSchools.net is a great place to start your search. GreatSchools is more of a word driven report with parent and staff reviews, student test scores, financial data, school environment, district overviews and teacher stats. If you know the specific schools in the neighborhood, you can search by school. However, you can also start with a zip code and narrow your search to the specific schools you want to compare.

To make it easy to compare the schools, GreatSchools assigns each school a rank from 1-10, 10 being the highest possible score. As this is an overall ranking, you can click through the school’s report to find out each school’s strengths and weaknesses.

California Dept of Education – DataQuest

The California Department of Education’s DataQuest site is more of a numbers driven report. There you will find information about the school’s performance including API (Academic Performance Index) and Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP), test scores, student demographics, school staffing, and student misconduct information. This information is available at the State, County, District and School level. You can also create your own report with the information that is most important to you.

Education Data Partnership

The Education Data Partnership is another resource that provides information about bond and parcel tax elections, district comparisons with detailed financial reports, list of schools in each district and provides teacher salary information. The site also compares California schools to other schools in the nation and provides explanations of California school issues and policies.

For a list of the top schools in San Mateo County, fill out the form below.