Brittan Acres Elementary vs Mariposa

Brittan Acres Elementary and Mariposa are both top-tier elementary schools in San Carlos, California, separated by just 1.4 miles — but Mariposa holds a meaningful edge in California's statewide rankings. Mariposa sits at #47 of 9,533 California schools while Brittan Acres Elementary ranks #132 of 9,533, a gap of 85 positions that reflects a real performance difference despite both schools operating well above average. The overall rating gap is 0.2 points, with Mariposa scoring 9.4/10 versus Brittan Acres Elementary's 9.2/10 — modest in absolute terms but significant given how compressed scores are at the top of the distribution.

On academics, Mariposa scores 9.7/10 against Brittan Acres Elementary's 9.4/10 — a 0.3-point advantage that tracks with its higher state rank. Growth tells a different story entirely: both schools post identical 9.9/10 growth scores, meaning students at each school advance at the same exceptional rate relative to peers statewide. Whatever academic gap exists between the two schools at entry, neither widens it through poor instruction — both are delivering strong year-over-year gains.

The schools are closely matched demographically. Brittan Acres Elementary enrolls 372 students versus Mariposa's 286, making Brittan Acres the larger campus. Free and reduced-price lunch eligibility is nearly identical — 11% at Brittan Acres Elementary and 10% at Mariposa — indicating comparable socioeconomic profiles. Mariposa offers a slightly more favorable student-teacher ratio at 20.4:1 compared to Brittan Acres Elementary's 21.9:1, a difference of 1.5 students per teacher that can matter in practice for classroom attention.

The most decisive structural difference is grade span: Brittan Acres Elementary serves kindergarten through grade 3, while Mariposa serves grades 4 and 5. These are not directly competing schools for most San Carlos families — they function as sequential stops in the same educational journey. A family in the San Carlos Unified attendance zone will likely encounter both campuses as their child progresses through elementary school, making the comparison most relevant when a family is weighing an intra-district transfer or evaluating the full pipeline from entry through fifth grade.