Sentinel High School
Missoula · MT · Missoula H S · Public
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Most similar nearby schools
Butte High School → Frenchtown High School → Florence-Carlton HS → Stevensville High School → Browning High School → CSD HS Rise Pathway Academy → Laurel High School → Polson High School →📋 At a glance
- 📚 14 AP courses offered — Elite
- ✅ Dual-enrollment program (college credit while in HS)
- ✅ Gifted & talented program
- 🔢 8 calculus classes · 5 physics · 9 chemistry
- 🎓 AP rigor: Top 3.7% of US high schools
- 📝 SAT/ACT participation: 92th percentile by test-taker volume
- 🎓 4-yr grad rate: 86% (Bottom 36% of US high schools by 4-yr grad rate)
Composed from federal CRDC offerings, EDFacts ACGR, and other public data. Full breakdowns below.
How Sentinel High School compares for families
Among the nation's most academically rigorous high schools.
- ▸ StatewideAP rigor sits in the top 3.7% of US high schools with 14 AP courses.
- ▸ LocallyMT students outperform the US average on NAEP 8th-grade math (+7 points).
- ▸ vs Similar SchoolsThe closest comparables nearby: Butte High School, Frenchtown High School, Florence-Carlton HS and 5 more. See the sidebar to compare side-by-side.
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🎓 Academic rigor
AP + advanced-course offerings
Elite — exceptional AP + advanced course breadth
Top 3.7% of US high schools
✅ Gifted/talented program
Source: federal Civil Rights Data Collection (CRDC 2020-21). CRDC reports what's offered + enrolled — it doesn't collect AP exam pass rates (College Board owns that data and doesn't release it school-level).
SAT / ACT participation
CRDC federal data · 2020-2192th percentile by test-taker volume
Source: federal Civil Rights Data Collection (CRDC 2020-21). Volume — not score — is what's reported here. A higher count means more students at this school are entering the college admissions pipeline. Note: 2020-21 was COVID-disrupted; some districts (especially those that stayed remote longer) report unusually low or zero takers.
🎓 4-year graduation rate · federal EDFacts
What % of students graduate on time?
Bottom 36% of US high schools by 4-yr grad rate
Source: federal EDFacts ACGR (Adjusted Cohort Graduation Rate), 2019 vintage via Urban Institute. EDFacts publishes a range (low-high) to preserve privacy on small cohorts; we display the midpoint.
👩🏫 Teacher workforce · federal CRDC
Teacher experience & reliability
Source: federal Civil Rights Data Collection (CRDC 2017-18 — the most recent vintage that publishes per-school teacher quality fields; the 2020-21 sweep had them suppressed). "Inexperienced" = teachers in their first or second year. "Chronic absence" = teachers absent 10+ days/year.
🏛️ Federal Title I context
Mixed-income school
Below Title I eligibility threshold (FRPL < 35%)
25-34% of students qualify for free/reduced lunch. Below the federal Title I threshold but a meaningful share of the population is income-eligible for free lunch.
Source: NCES Common Core of Data, free/reduced-price lunch eligibility. The actual Title I designation is a district decision and may differ from eligibility — but the federal eligibility math is what we show here. We don't claim to assert whether the district formally chose to enroll this school in Title I.
🏛️ Your state's public flagship
The University of Montana
The in-state tuition gap is the flagship's biggest draw — most in-state families pay far less than the out-of-state sticker. Average net price after aid runs about $16,784/yr. Admission odds depend on your student's GPA and test scores, not which high school they attend.
Source: IPEDS admissions, tuition & enrollment + College Scorecard net price. Flagship = the state's primary public research university.
Chronic absenteeism
Why this matters to enrollment: Chronic absence is the most reliable early indicator that a student will leave a school — either by transferring out, dropping out, or matriculating to a charter or private alternative. At this level, today's absentees become next year's enrollment loss and the year-after's revenue loss. For school leaders: an Enrollment Trend Audit traces this dynamic forward →
Source: U.S. Department of Education, Civil Rights Data Collection 2020–2021. Rate = students chronically absent ÷ 2024 total enrollment.
Counselor capacity
Source: U.S. Department of Education, Civil Rights Data Collection 2020-2021. Counselor ratio = the school's most recent total enrollment ÷ counselor FTE. The American School Counselor Association (ASCA) recommends a 250:1 maximum; the US national median across schools with on-staff counselors is roughly 430:1.
Enrollment trend & projection
Total enrollment + grade 12, NCES Common Core of Data (2021–2024).
If the recent trend holds…
At its recent rate of +1.1%/year, projecting from 2024's 1,365 students:
An extrapolation of the recent trajectory, not a forecast of the school's plans; ignores one-off shocks.
Revenue upside
At $15,959 per student in district revenue, the 78 students projected to be gained by 2029 represent ≈ $1,244,802/year in additional funding.
District total revenue ÷ enrollment, NCES F-33. Public funding largely follows enrollment, so a shrinking class is a recurring budget hit.
Most similar nearby high schools
The schools most like this one — same type, blended on distance and size — and where their enrollment is heading. These are the schools families here weigh against each other.
| School | Type | Miles | HS enrollment | Trend |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Butte High School Butte |
Public | 91.1 | 1,266 | -2.2% |
| Frenchtown High School Frenchtown |
Public | 16.3 | 364 | -25.7% |
| Florence-Carlton HS Florence |
Public | 14.6 | 237 | -12.2% |
| Stevensville High School Stevensville |
Public | 23.8 | 347 | -9.4% |
| Browning High School Browning |
Public | 126.2 | 633 | +14.5% |
| CSD HS Rise Pathway Academy Corvallis |
Public | 36.9 | — | — |
| Laurel High School Laurel |
Public | 263.0 | 578 | -8.1% |
| Polson High School Polson |
Public | 57.9 | 517 | +1.2% |