[3] The district has more than 3,000 full-time employees serving approximately 30,000 students in 41 schools from Downtown San Jose in the north to the Almaden Valley in the south.

The rural districts used lawsuits to delay or block annexations in an attempt to preserve their tax bases.

Christensen (2015) cites the resulting hodgepodge of school districts within San Jose as a contributing factor in the city's "fragmented politics, lack of identity and racial segregation".

Thus, in 1956, the voters in Almaden Union School District elected to merge with San José Unified.

[9] In 1983, federal bankruptcy judge Seymour Abrahams declared the school board bankrupt under Chapter 9.