Yu (Alice Fong) Elementary vs King (Thomas Starr) Elementary

King (Thomas Starr) Elementary edges Yu (Alice Fong) Elementary by 0.2 points in overall rating — 9.3 vs 9.1 out of 10 — but the state rank gap tells a sharper story: King (Thomas Starr) Elementary sits at #123 of 9,533 California schools while Yu (Alice Fong) Elementary ranks #252 of 9,533. Both land in the top 3% statewide, so either choice puts a San Francisco family well above the median, but King (Thomas Starr) Elementary's rank advantage is real and not trivial given the size of the pool.

The academic picture splits in the opposite direction. Yu (Alice Fong) Elementary scores 9.8/10 on academics versus King (Thomas Starr) Elementary's 8.9/10 — a 0.9-point delta that signals meaningfully stronger tested proficiency at Yu. Growth scores are identical: both schools post 9.5/10, meaning students at each school advance at the same above-average pace regardless of where they start. The divergence between Yu's academic edge and King's higher overall rating reflects how other weighted factors — environment, equity inputs — lift King in the composite.

Yu (Alice Fong) Elementary enrolls 589 students compared to King (Thomas Starr) Elementary's 335, and the student-teacher ratio follows: 26.8:1 at Yu versus 16.8:1 at King. That 10-student-per-teacher difference is one of the largest classroom-size gaps a family will find between two high-rated schools in the same city. Free and reduced-price lunch rates are close — 36% at Yu versus 40% at King — so neither school serves a dramatically more economically diverse population than the other.

Yu (Alice Fong) Elementary serves grades KG–8, running students through middle school without a campus transition. King (Thomas Starr) Elementary is a KG–5 program, meaning families will need to identify a middle school before sixth grade. The two campuses sit 3.9 miles apart within San Francisco, so geography alone rarely forces the choice — program structure and classroom density are the more decisive variables here.