Families on Novato's northeast side are served by Olive Elementary School, about one mile from the downtown area. The school has two entrances -- one on the north side off Plum Street and the other on the south side off Olive Avenue, which is more of a main thoroughfare.
The school is one of eight neighborhood elementary schools in the Novato Unified School District. Built in 1952, it has 26 teachers and 20 classrooms on the 13-acre property.
The special-day class and kindergarten classes share their own fenced playground and are situated close to the school office. In addition, the upper playground is used by first and second grades while the lower playground and playing field is used by third, fourth and fifth grades. The city of Novato maintains play equipment and an adjacent fenced playing field for extracurricular programs.
Olive's API index for the 2009-2010 academic year was 811. The state has set 800 as the score schools should strive to meet.
As of the 2009-2010 school year, the ethnic breakdown of the student body included 52.4 percent whites, 36.4 percent Hispanics, 4.0 percent Asian Americans and 2.7 percent African Americans. Twenty-four percent of the students are considered English language learners, just over the 21 percent district average.
The socioeconomic status of the families in the Olive area is slightly below the district average, according to district statistics (socioeconomically disadvantaged students are those receiving free or reduced lunch or when neither parent is a high school graduate). Forty percent of the kids are categorized as socioeconomically disadvantaged, with 32.9 percent being the district average. In addition, 42 percent of the parents surveyed had college degrees, just below the district average of 53 percent.
Rancho, located in the Presidents neighborhood not far from Novato High School, is consistently the city's highest-scoring elementary school on annual tests and is a major source of pride for the Novato Unified School District. It is known for its high standards for personal responsibility and heavy involvement by the parents.
Rancho was a "back to basics" school from the 1970s to the early 2000s, but now teaches the same curriculum as the other elementary schools in Novato. Rancho has no neighborhood boundaries from which it draws students and thus has kids enrolled from across the city.
A lottery system is used to determine who is accepted each year. Parents interested in enrolling their kindergartners at Rancho are recommended to set up an appointment to receive a school tour unless the family has had another child at Rancho within the past three years. Anyone may fill out a registration packet at any neighborhood school office as well as an intra-district transfer application.
Some critics have questioned why Rancho still has no drawing boundaries and the lottery system now that the curriculum is no longer "back to basics." The school district has contracted a facilities study that will address that subject sometime in 2012.
