Ellen Fletcher Middle School

Ellen Fletcher Middle School sits on Arastradero Road in south Palo Alto, just down the road from Gunn High School and next to the Bowman School campus. It is the smallest of the city's three public middle schools, with 573 students in grades 6 to 8 in the 2025 to 2026 school year, according to the California Department of Education. Until 2018 it was Terman Middle School.

Our overview of the three PAUSD middle schools gives the short version. This page covers the site's history, the renaming as it was documented, the woman the school honors, the electives Fletcher lists on its website, the shared bell schedule and the commute. We describe schools but do not rank them. The California School Dashboard is the official source for performance data.

Location and neighbors

The address is 655 Arastradero Road, Palo Alto 94306, between El Camino Real and Foothill Expressway. Gunn High School is at 780 Arastradero. Bowman School's main campus is on Terman Drive right beside the Fletcher lot. Terman Park sits behind the school. Barron Park is a short ride north and the Los Altos to Palo Alto bike path runs nearby.

Arastradero is a main road with heavy commute traffic and steady student bike traffic. That is the key fact about getting to Fletcher, covered below.

History of the site

The first school here was Terman Junior High, named for Stanford psychologist Lewis Terman. Wikipedia's district history says it closed in 1978 as enrollment fell. In the years that followed, the Jewish Community Center used land at the site.

When enrollment rose again in the late 1990s, the district decided to reopen a middle school there. Wikipedia says the plan drew controversy when the district considered taking land from the Jewish Community Center by eminent domain. The dispute ended with a land trade involving the district's Cubberley property. The JCC then leased district land at Cubberley until it made other plans. The new Terman Middle School opened for the 2001 to 2002 school year. It was named for both Lewis Terman and his son Frederick Terman, the Stanford engineering dean often called a father of Silicon Valley.

The 2018 renaming

The renaming of Terman ran alongside that of Jordan, now Greene. Palo Alto Online and the Stanford Daily reported the steps:

1. A parent petition about the eugenics views of David Starr Jordan led to two district committees.
2. In March 2017 the board voted unanimously to rename both schools, because Jordan and Lewis Terman were leaders in the eugenics movement. Frederick Terman did not share those views, but his father's name could not stay.
3. Public debate over candidate names followed. Names considered included Hewlett-Packard co-founder William Hewlett, a former student of Frederick Terman.
4. On March 27, 2018 the board voted 5 to 0 to name the school after Ellen Fletcher. The name took effect in the 2018 to 2019 school year.

Fletcher's daughter Terry told Palo Alto Online that the board had rejected eugenics by choosing someone that movement would have considered inferior because she was Jewish. In December 2018 the school held an event to honor its new namesake.

Who Ellen Fletcher was

Palo Alto Online's 2012 obituary tells her story. Our Ellen Fletcher profile adds more. Ellen Fletcher was born in Berlin and spent part of her childhood in foster homes and a Jewish orphanage. The Nazis deported her from Germany because her father was a Polish citizen. In 1938 she reached London on the Kindertransport, which carried Jewish children to safety in Britain. She discovered cycling there.

She moved to New York in 1946 and rode a bike around Hunter College at a time when almost no one did. After college she settled in Menlo Park and then Palo Alto. In the early 1970s she was safety chair at Fairmeadow Elementary. In 1977 she was elected to the City Council, campaigning with a sign on the back of her bicycle, a detail the school's own page repeats. She pushed for bike lanes and bike bridges, the household hazardous waste program and anti-smoking laws.

The city dates the Bryant Street bike boulevard to the 1970s; Palo Alto Online reported its opening in 1982. In 2002 the council named it the Ellen Fletcher Bicycle Boulevard. She kept riding to City Hall into her 80s and died on November 7, 2012, at 83. Our women in Palo Alto history page places her among other local leaders.

Programs and electives

Sustainability for All

Fletcher's choice program is unusual because every student takes part. PAUSD says sustainability topics are built into science, history, English and math. Students from outside the Fletcher area can apply in any grade from 6 to 8. Our choice programs guide covers the lottery.

Sixth grade

Sixth graders spend one period on alternate days in physical education and music, where beginners can pick band or choir. The other period is the exploratory wheel, rotating every six weeks through art, computers, drama, industrial technology and language transfer.

Seventh and eighth grade electives

• Visual and performing arts: art, Drama 1A and 1B, musical theatre, concert and symphonic band, choir and orchestra. The bands march in the May Fete parade and tour elementary schools.
• Career and technical education: computer applications and programming, which covers Python, JavaScript, Java and app building; Explorations in Technology 1A and 1B; family and consumer sciences; media studies; video journalism, which produces a daily broadcast; and web design for eighth graders.
• World languages: French, Japanese and Spanish, plus Spanish for Spanish Speakers. A beginning class runs only if at least 24 students sign up in advance.

Fletcher also runs AVID and an advisory period called PRIME, which stands for Personal, Reteaching, Intervention, Mentoring and Enrichment. PRIME covers team building, service projects, study skills, assessment retakes, digital citizenship and social-emotional lessons. Clubs meet at lunch and after school. The City of Palo Alto runs after-school sports through its Middle School Athletics program.

Bell schedule basics

Fletcher uses the shared PAUSD middle school daily bell schedule, posted as an image on its daily schedule page:

Every day starts at 8:30 a.m. Brunch is 10:00 to 10:10 a.m. and lunch is 11:40 a.m. to 12:15 p.m. Holiday weeks, minimum day Fridays and the last week of school have their own schedules.

Attendance area

Fletcher's attendance area covers part of south and southwest Palo Alto. PAUSD says Fletcher naturally feeds into Gunn. To confirm that an address is zoned for Fletcher, use the School Finder linked from PAUSD's school placement page. New families register first with Registration Services, as our enrollment guide explains.

Getting there: bikes first

PAUSD does not run buses for the general student population. Fletcher says about half its students bike and many walk. That makes sense for a school named after the city's best known cycling advocate. The city's Safe Routes to School Walk and Roll map, in English, Spanish and Mandarin, shows suggested routes. The main entry points for walkers and riders are:

• Arastradero Road.
• Donald Drive.
• The Los Altos to Palo Alto bike path.
• The path from Terman Park at the back of the school.

On campus, bikes may be ridden only in the bike lanes from 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. on school days. Three bike cages are locked during school hours. The school recommends U-locks and asks that skateboards and scooters be carried and locked in the bike cage. Riders under 18 must wear a helmet under state law.

For drivers

Fletcher calls its parking lot small. The rules:

1. Do not drop students on Arastradero Road.
2. Enter the one-way lot and use the signed drop-off area on its side. Do not stop in the driveway, in front of the school or in staff spaces.
3. Never use the Bowman School lot.
4. Do not turn right on red from the Fletcher driveway onto Arastradero when students are present.

The school suggests a half-mile challenge: drop students a half mile away so they walk the rest. The Bol Park bike path is another low-traffic link for families coming from the north.

Frequently asked questions