PAUSD middle schools: Greene, Fletcher and JLS

After fifth grade, Palo Alto public school students move to one of three middle schools for grades 6 to 8. Each school has its own history, a choice program that students from other attendance areas can apply to and a place in the path toward one of the city's two high schools. This page covers all three as the district lists them in October 2026.

Our public schools guide gives the district overview and our elementary schools guide covers the schools that come before. We describe schools. We do not rank them or compare scores.

The three schools at a glance

Main office phone numbers are on the district's schools directory. Each school also has its own website, linked from the same page.

Frank S. Greene Jr. Middle School

Greene sits on North California Avenue in the north of the city, a short ride from Midtown and Crescent Park. The school opened as David Starr Jordan Middle School. Wikipedia's district history dates it to 1937 and says it closed in 1985 when enrollment fell, then reopened in 1991 after a remodel.

In March 2017 the Board of Education voted unanimously to drop the Jordan name. On March 27, 2018 it voted 5 to 0 to rename the school after Dr. Frank S. Greene Jr. (1938 to 2009). The school's own history page describes him as one of the first African American technologists of Silicon Valley. He worked on high-speed semiconductor memory at Fairchild Semiconductor, earned a Ph.D. in electrical engineering at Santa Clara University and taught at Stanford and other universities. In 1993 he co-founded New Vista Capital, a venture firm that backed businesses started by women and minorities.

Greene hosts the Language Bridge program, which continues Mandarin or Spanish for students who finished the elementary immersion programs. Others can qualify by passing a fluency assessment. Greene says those assessments take place twice a year, in August or September and in December for spring entry.

Jane Lathrop Stanford Middle School

JLS is on East Meadow Drive in south Palo Alto, next to Fairmeadow Elementary. The school's own history page tells the story. The land once belonged to farmers who sold it to the developer Joseph Eichler, who donated the sites for both schools. You can read more about his tracts in our Eichler homes history.

The school opened on August 18, 1953 as Ray Lyman Wilbur Junior High School, with 31 teachers and about 650 students in grades 7 to 9. The page credits the design to Birge Clark and Walter Stromquist. Our Birge Clark profile covers the architect's long career in town. Ninth graders moved to the high schools in 1975. By 1985 the district had closed its other junior highs, every seventh and eighth grader attended this campus and it took the name Jane Lathrop Stanford Middle School. Sixth grade was added in the early 1990s. The California Department of Education counted 989 students at JLS in 2025 to 2026.

The choice program here is Connections, which PAUSD describes as an inquiry-based learning community built on student choice, cross-curricular units, collaboration and public presentation.

Ellen Fletcher Middle School

Fletcher is on Arastradero Road in the south of the city, just down the road from Gunn High School. The site first held Terman Junior High, which closed in 1978. Rising enrollment brought a new Terman Middle School to the site and Wikipedia gives 2001 to 2002 as its first school year.

The board voted unanimously in March 2017 to drop the Terman name, then voted 5 to 0 on March 27, 2018 to rename the school after Ellen Fletcher. The school's page describes her as an immigrant, a refugee and a Holocaust survivor who served on the Palo Alto City Council and fought for bike lanes and bike bridges. The Bryant Street route is named the Ellen Fletcher Bicycle Boulevard in her honor. See our bike boulevards guide. The school colors are black and gold.

Fletcher's choice program, Sustainability for All, is unusual because every Fletcher student takes part in some way. The district says sustainability topics are built into science, history, English and math classes. Students from outside the Fletcher area can apply in any grade from 6 to 8. Examples of grade-level trips on the district's page include an overnight outdoor science camp in sixth grade and a California Academy of Sciences visit in seventh.

Feeder patterns: from elementary to high school

PAUSD groups its elementary schools into clusters. All schools in a cluster feed the same middle and high schools. The district does not publish a single table of every cluster on its placement page, so the reliable way to see a student's full path is to enter the home address in the School Finder linked from the school placement page.

Here is what the published sources do say:

• Fletcher to Gunn. The district's own description of Sustainability for All says Fletcher "naturally feeds into" Gunn High School.
• Choice students from the Paly area. The same page says Paly-area students who joined Fletcher's program may continue to Gunn through its pathways or return to Paly, their neighborhood high school.
• Split areas. Wikipedia lists Greene and JLS as feeder schools for Paly and all three middle schools as feeders for Gunn. In practice that means students from Greene and JLS do not all go to the same high school.

Read that last point as a general pattern, not a promise for any one street. Boundaries can be adjusted. If the high school matters to your plans, confirm it with Registration Services at (650) 329-3707. Our guides to Palo Alto High School and Gunn High School describe the next step.

Applying to a middle school choice program

Rising sixth graders can apply to one choice program through the district lottery. The rules are the same as for elementary programs: one application per student, siblings and children of PAUSD employees must still apply and accepting a choice seat gives up the neighborhood seat. For the 2027 to 2028 school year PAUSD lists these dates:

1. Applications open January 19, 2027 and close February 19, 2027 at 4 p.m.
2. The lottery is Friday, February 26, 2027 at 10 a.m. in the district office boardroom at 25 Churchill Avenue.
3. Families reply with their decision by Wednesday, March 3, 2027 at 4 p.m.

Students who miss the lottery or join PAUSD in seventh or eighth grade can ask to be added to a waitlist. Our choice programs guide has the full rules.

Getting there and after school

The district does not run buses for the general student population, so most middle schoolers walk or bike. All three campuses sit near bike routes and the morning bike traffic on Arastradero Road and East Meadow Drive is a familiar sight.

For after-school time, PAUSD's Expanded Learning Opportunities Program lists the YMCA as its partner for sixth grade. The City of Palo Alto runs a Middle School Athletics program through its recreation department. Its Mitchell Park Teen Center, known as The Drop, is a free supervised drop-in space for middle and high school students on school-day afternoons. Details are in our after-school programs guide.

Frequently asked questions