Addison Elementary School

Addison Elementary is the public elementary school for a slice of north Palo Alto between downtown and Middlefield Road. The school calls itself Palo Alto's "downtown school" and describes a community that speaks dozens of languages and comes from every continent. With 377 students in the 2025 to 2026 school year, according to the California Department of Education, it sits near the middle of the district's 12 elementary schools by size.

This page goes deeper than our overview of all 12 PAUSD elementary schools. It covers the campus history the district documents, the programs Addison publishes, the 2026 to 2027 bell schedule, attendance and the daily business of getting a child to class. We do not rank schools or quote test scores. For official results, use the California School Dashboard.

Location and campus

The address is 650 Addison Avenue, Palo Alto 94301. The campus takes up a full block bounded by Addison Avenue, Middlefield Road, Lincoln Avenue and Webster Street. That puts it on the eastern edge of University South, a few blocks from the historic houses of Professorville and within walking distance of University Avenue.

A 2018 profile in the district's facilities archive lists the site at 4.6 acres. About 1.6 acres is grass play area and 1.1 acres is hardcourt. The buildings are single story and arranged in a rectangle around a central courtyard. The staff parking lot opens onto Webster Street.

Addison shares its street with a famous neighbor. The HP Garage, where Bill Hewlett and David Packard started their company in 1939, is at 367 Addison Avenue, a few blocks toward Alma Street. It sits on private property and is not open for tours.

History and name

Addison is one of the district's older elementary campuses. The district's facilities profile says the school was founded in 1925, when two classroom buildings went up. A multipurpose building followed in 1956. In 1969 the district replaced the original two-story building and added two classroom buildings and an administration and library building.

Later work came in waves. Day care classrooms were placed near Webster Street in the 1990s. A new classroom building arrived in 2002 and classroom interiors were modernized in 2003. The 2018 profile also describes a bond project to replace the administration, food service, library and multipurpose buildings. Check the school or the district's construction pages for the current state of that work.

The school takes its name from Addison Avenue. Wikipedia's list of district schools says the street honors Joseph Addison, the 18th century English essayist. Neither the school nor the district explains the name on its own website, so treat the essayist link as the commonly reported version.

Programs and school life

Addison's welcome page describes a school that supports "the whole child," academically, socially and emotionally. Its published programs are modest in number and shared with many district schools:

• Spectra Art for all grades, the visual art program funded across the district by Palo Alto Partners in Education (PiE).
• Music for all grades through the district's elementary music program.
• Third grade bike safety, a three-part course each fall that ends with an on-bike rodeo run with bicycle instructors and the Palo Alto fire and police departments.
• Project Cornerstone, the YMCA of Silicon Valley's social and emotional learning program, which uses parent volunteers to lead monthly lessons.
• The Treehouse, the school library, which runs its own online catalog and aims to build self-sufficient readers.

Addison is not a choice school and has no immersion program. Families who want Mandarin or Spanish immersion or the Hoover and Ohlone models apply through the district lottery, covered in our choice programs guide.

Bell schedule basics for 2026 to 2027

Each PAUSD elementary school posts its own times. Addison's daily schedule page shows:

Brunch recess runs from 10:00 to 10:20 a.m. and lunch recess from noon to 12:45 p.m. Playground supervision begins at 8:00 a.m. and students who reach class after the second bell at 8:15 are marked tardy. There is no staff supervision after dismissal. The playground stays closed until the 4th and 5th graders leave at 2:45 p.m.

On early release days everyone goes home at 12:15 p.m. The dates the school lists for 2026 to 2027 are September 4, October 30, November 20 and December 18, 2026, then April 2 and June 1 to 3, 2027. The current version always lives on the Addison daily schedule page.

Attendance area and what comes next

Addison serves a neighborhood attendance area, but the lines follow particular streets. Neighborhood guides from Palo Alto Online and the Palo Alto Weekly have listed Addison for University South and for parts of Downtown North, Crescent Park and the Community Center area, with Duveneck or Walter Hays serving other addresses nearby. The only reliable answer comes from the School Finder linked on PAUSD's school placement and transfers page.

Elementary schools are grouped into clusters that feed the same middle and high schools. Guides for this part of town list Greene Middle School and Palo Alto High School as the next steps. If Addison is full in a grade, the district can place a new student at another school in the cluster and add the child to the Addison waitlist. Our enrollment guide explains registration and the documents the district asks for.

Walking, biking and drop-off

Addison is a walking school. Its welcome page says about 70 percent of students and their families walk or bike to campus. The city's Safe Routes to School program publishes a Walk and Roll map for Addison with suggested routes, linked from the school's home page. Many families use the city's bike boulevards, including Bryant Street, a few blocks west.

Driving is harder. The school's FAQ calls parking around Addison extremely limited and says the Webster Street lot is reserved for teachers and staff. Its advice:

1. Walk or bike when you can.
2. If you must drive, arrive early or park a few blocks away and walk in.
3. Do not drop children before 8:00 a.m., when supervision starts.
4. Pick up on time, since dismissal varies by grade.

On campus, no wheeled vehicles may be ridden at any time unless they are part of a lesson, so bikes and scooters are walked. Dogs are not allowed on campus from 7:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. on school days. Many parents tie their dogs to the fence at pickup. To report a crash involving a student, the school lists the Palo Alto police number, (650) 329-2413.

PAUSD runs only a limited bus schedule and does not provide buses for most elementary students. Plan on walking, biking or driving.

PTA, PiE and the Addison community

Parents carry a large share of school life at Addison. The Addison PTA publishes a weekly newsletter, the Addison Advisor, from early August to the first week of June. It hosts playdates for incoming kindergartners and an ice cream social with a new family tour the day before school starts. Its FAQ says parent donations to the PTA fund all classroom supplies, so families do not shop from a supply list.

The PTA's biggest event is an adults-only fall auction, which the school says is held at Lucie Stern with a different theme each year. Volunteer roles range from classroom help to jobs that suit working parents, such as editing the newsletter or coordinating the school's group for the May Fete Parade. Districtwide, PiE pools donations to pay for staff and programs at every elementary school, including art.

After-school care and classes

Two providers offer child care at Addison: Right at School and the Addison Kids Club, which Palo Alto Community Child Care (PACCC) runs. Families register directly with each. The PTA also organizes enrichment classes on campus each semester, each with its own fee. The providers are independent and not employed by the school or PAUSD. Parents are responsible for getting children to and from class. Our after-school programs guide explains how care works across the district.

Frequently asked questions