Alamo Elementary vs Lafayette Elementary

Lafayette Elementary and Alamo Elementary are both San Francisco public elementary schools serving kindergarten through fifth grade, separated by just 0.9 miles — yet their overall ratings diverge by 0.6 points, with Lafayette Elementary at 9.3/10 and Alamo Elementary at 8.7/10. That gap understates the state-rank distance: Lafayette Elementary sits at #122 of 9,533 California elementary schools, while Alamo Elementary ranks #612 of 9,533 — a 490-position difference that places Lafayette in roughly the top 1.3% of the state versus Alamo's top 6.4%.

Academically, both schools score in the high nines, but Lafayette Elementary holds the edge at every measured dimension. Its academic score of 9.7/10 exceeds Alamo Elementary's 9.4/10, and the growth score — which tracks how much students improve year over year, independent of where they start — follows the same pattern: Lafayette Elementary at 9.1/10 versus Alamo Elementary at 8.6/10, a half-point difference that suggests Lafayette students are gaining ground at a faster rate regardless of incoming skill level.

On demographic and structural measures, the two schools differ meaningfully. Alamo Elementary enrolls 393 students against Lafayette Elementary's 474, but Alamo carries a higher student-teacher ratio at 23.1:1 compared to Lafayette's 20.6:1 — meaning each Lafayette teacher serves roughly two fewer students on average. Alamo Elementary's free and reduced-price lunch rate of 41% is 13 percentage points higher than Lafayette Elementary's 28%, reflecting a more economically diverse student body at Alamo.

Both schools cover the same grade span, KG–05, so families with children at multiple elementary levels face no structural difference in years served. The distinctions lie entirely in outcomes and composition: Lafayette Elementary's higher growth score, lower student-teacher ratio, and top-1% state ranking set it apart on measurable performance, while Alamo Elementary's greater economic diversity and still-strong top-7% statewide standing make it a substantively different community environment within the same neighborhood corridor.