“Which San Carlos School Boundary is This Home In?”

March 2, 2011

school-class

The Second-Most Asked Question.

A couple of weeks ago, we talked about the most commonly asked question you're likely to hear at an open house.  Today, we'll discuss the second-most likely question:  Which San Carlos schools does this home go to?    This seems logical, since our excellent school district is one of the primary reasons that people move here in the first place.   So one would expect that an agent who is listing a home in San Carlos should have this information at their fingertips, no?  But I was touring a house in San Carlos couple of weeks ago that was listed by an out-of-town agent, and I couldn't resist the temptation to ask her that very question — to which I got a blank stare in return.   Oops 🙁

Finding out which elementary school, middle school, and ultimately which high school your home is zoned for is relatively easy, if you know where to look.  But I'll make it absurdly easy right now by giving you all of that information below!

  • San Carlos Elementary and Middle School Boundaries.   The San Carlos School District recently revised their website to include an entire page on school boundaries.   There's an updated list you can download that has a street-by-street outline of the district Here is that list:  San Carlos School District Boundaries.
  • High School Boundaries.   When San Carlos closed its own high school in 1982, the high school boundary in San Carlos was split between Carlmont High School and Sequoia High School, with the majority of homes being zoned for the latter.   Since there's no easy map to read that defines the boundary, the best way for you to determine which high school a particular home is zoned for is to visit this link on the Sequoia Union High School District website – just enter the street name and it will tell you which of the two high schools you are destined for:  Sequoia Union High School District Boundaries.

The Obvious Disclaimers.

I would be remiss without relaying a couple of disclaimers to the above information.  First, just because your home is located within a certain San Carlos School boundary does not guarantee that you will get into that particular school.  If that school is impacted, there is a whole placement process that the District applies to determine who gets in.

On the converse side, you don't necessarily have to go to the school that your home is zoned for.  If there's space in a school across town that you'd like to attend, you *may* be accommodated if there is space available.  It's up to the District to make that call.   Same goes with the high school — even though most of San Carlos is within the Sequoia High School boundary, many families have successfully applied for intra-district transfers to attend Carlmont (again, this is based on available space.)    Sequoia High School is rapidly gaining favor among San Carlos families, but that's a story for a different post.

So now you have school scoop.    And no — there's no excuse for a listing agent in San Carlos not knowing this information.

 

 

Posted in:

2 Comments

  1. Seth on March 3, 2011 at 12:39 am

    Chuck — the most current link for school boundaries (including a map and a street listing) is on the district web site at http://www.sancarlos.k12.ca.us/aboutscsd/district-mapboundaries/. It also includes the “preference” procedures with regards to items like preferences for siblings, etc. I believe the link you included was a document that was used during the discussion when we were considering the boundary changes, but it wasn’t the final product. Also note that although most the students zoned for Brittan Acres and White Oaks are zoned for Central Middle Schools and most Arundel and Heather students are zoned for Tierra Linda, it is not all. So, everyone should check out the street by street listing on confirm both elementary and middle school zoning.



  2. Chuck Gillooley on March 3, 2011 at 1:45 am

    Seth,

    Thanks for the clarification. I will make the necessary changes to the links in the post.

    Chuck



Leave a Comment