Almaden Valley Schools

As most of Almaden Valley is associated with the California Postal Zip Code 95120, here is a comprehensive list of public and private schools in the 95120 area with relevant contact information and the latest API scores:

Public Schools

Private Schools

API Scores

NB: On March 13, 2014, the State Board of Education (SBE) approved not to calculate the API for local educational agencies (LEAs) and schools for the 2014 and 2015 academic years. As a result, the 2014, 2015, and 2016 API reports will not be produced. The SBE and the California Department of Education (CDE) are in the process of developing a new accountability system to replace the API to better measure our State's educational goals.

What is The API Score?

The Academic Performance Index (API) measures the performance and growth of schools and districts based on the test scores of students in grades 2 through 12. The California Department of Education (CDE) calculates the API and disseminates the results directly to schools and districts.

The API is a single number on a scale of 200 to 1,000 that indicates how well students in a school or district performed on the previous Spring tests.

The system is on a two-year cycle that gives a "base" score for the first year and a "growth" score in the second year:

• The Base API score, usually released in the Spring comes from the previous Spring test scores;
• The Growth API score, released in October every year comes from Spring test scores.

School Tips and Reviews

If you need to locate a school in the San Jose neighborhood you are planning to move in, check out first the Santa Clara County Office of Education.

The California Department of Education website is a great place to find and research data and statistics about the performance of California Schools.

I also like the School Performance Map for California, which enables you to locate the best schools in the San Jose area you are interested in and provides useful historical API scores for each school.

You can also find school ratings and reviews by parents for Elementary, Middle and High Schools on www.greatschools.org.

This web site includes ratings and reviews by parents about Principal Leadership, Teacher Quality, Extracurricular Activities, Parent Involvement, Safety and Discipline in particular on a scale of 1 to 10. The website also provides an overview of a school’s test performance. The ratings are based strictly on test score performance for that state’s standardized tests.

Please note that private schools are not required to publicly report test results, so they do not have ratings or API scores.