Schools

Students living in the Tanforan neighborhood attend one of two K-5 schools. Families living east of El Camino Real attend Belle Air Elementary School, which has 402 students, a Great Schools rating of 3 out of 10 and a 2013 API of 791. Students living west of El Camino attend Rolllingwood Elementary, with a Great Schools rating of 6 out of 10, a student body of 249 and an API of 795. After this, they attend Parkside Intermediate School, which has 516 students in grades 6 through 8, a Great Schools rating of 7 out of 10 and an API of 785, then finish at Capuchino High School or Peninsula Alternative High School.

History

Tanforan is an area rich in history. As the former location of the Tanforan Race Track, its history is most widely-known among San Bruno neighborhoods.

During its 65-year life (1899-1964), Tanforan Race Track, built on a section of Rancho Buri Buri that passed into the hands of Toribio Tanfaran (the spelling was later changed) via his marriage to a grand-daughter of Jose Antonio Sanchez, served as a center for horse racing, auto racing, motorcycle racing, dog racing, aerial exhibitions (in 1911, Eugene Ely made the first successful shipboard landing in history when he flew from Tanforan to the USS Pennsylvania, afloat in San Francisco Bay), military training and, in its darkest chapter, a staging center for the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II. In 1937, Seabiscuit, the biggest money winner in horse racing history, was stabled at Tanforan.

Horses raced at Tanforan until 1963, leaving the facility mercifully empty when it burned to the ground the last day of July 1964. By then it had already been sold to developers for $6.15 million. The Tanforan mall, now known as “The Shops at Tanforan,” was completed in 1971 and renovated in 2005. Today, commemorative plaques to the race track and the internment, plus a statue of Seabiscuit, can be found at the mall’s main entrance.

West of El Camino Real, where today’s Village at the Crossing, Acappella, Avalon and Peninsula Place stand was once a United States Navy Personnel Depot, established during World War II on former Sneath Dairy land. After the way, the U.S. continued to operate a base on part of the site, eventually closing in 1994 and selling the land to developers.