La Quinta High

La Quinta · CA · Desert Sands Unified · Public


🎓97% 4-yr grad rate

📋 At a glance

Programs & features
  • 📚 5 AP courses offered — Elite
  • ✅ Dual-enrollment program (college credit while in HS)
  • ✅ Gifted & talented program
  • 🔢 3 calculus classes · 10 physics · 24 chemistry
Academic signals
  • 🎓 AP rigor: 73rd percentile nationally
  • 📝 SAT/ACT participation: Bottom 34% by test-taker volume
  • 🎓 4-yr grad rate: 97% (90th percentile nationally)

Composed from federal CRDC offerings, EDFacts graduation data, and other public data. Full breakdowns below.

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How La Quinta High compares for families

Stronger-than-average college-prep profile.

  • StatewideAP rigor at the 73rd percentile nationally with 5 AP courses.
  • LocallyCA trails the US average on NAEP 8th-grade math (−4 points). Stronger local schools matter even more.
  • vs Similar SchoolsThe closest comparables nearby: Indio High, Coachella Valley High, Palm Desert High and 5 more. See the sidebar to compare side-by-side.

For Parents

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Objective, government-grade data — no school pays us for placement.

🎓 Academic rigor

AP + advanced-course offerings

Elite — exceptional AP + advanced course breadth

73rd percentile nationally

50th 90th ↑ this school
Less rigorMore rigorMost rigor
AP courses offered
5
Math ✓ · Science ✓
Students taking AP courses
211
≈9 per 100 students · uptake, not just offerings
Advanced math classes
7
3 calculus · 4 advanced
Lab science classes
34
10 physics · 24 chemistry
Other rigor signals
✅ Dual-enrollment program
✅ 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 · 2020-21

Bottom 34% by test-taker volume

50th 90th
SAT/ACT test-takers
35
11th-12th graders who took 1+ college admissions test
Test-taking intensity
1.4
takers per 100 students in grades 9-12
Compared against
18,426
US high schools reporting SAT/ACT participation

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?

90th percentile nationally

50th 90th
4-year graduation rate
97%
Single-point estimate
4-year cohort size
589
Students in the 9th-grade entry class tracked over 4 years
Compared against
17,988
US high schools reporting 4-year ACGR

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

% inexperienced teachers (1st-2nd yr)
10.9%
Typical mix. Watch the trend — high turnover can compound.
% chronic teacher absence (≥10 days/yr)
5.9%
Around the national average. Worth watching.

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

Title I Schoolwide eligible

≥40% FRPL — qualifies for Title I Schoolwide program

74.4%
FRPL rate — % of students who qualify for the federal Free or Reduced-Price Lunch program. This is the underlying federal income-eligibility signal Title I designations are computed from (ESEA Sec. 1113).
0% (no FRPL) 35% TA · 40% Schoolwide 100% (universal FRPL)

40-74% of students qualify for free/reduced lunch. The district can use Title I funds across the whole school under federal Schoolwide Program rules.

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.

Counselor capacity

Student : Counselor
474:1
Around the US median. Counselors are stretched but functional.
Counselor FTE
5.1
Full-time-equivalent school counselors on staff.
Teacher FTE
93
Full-time-equivalent classroom teachers.

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

Grade 12 went from 600 in 2021 to 546 in 2024 — over 3 years.
-9.0%

Total enrollment + grade 12, NCES Common Core of Data (2021–2024).

If the recent trend holds…

At its recent rate of -1.9%/year, projecting from 2024's 2,425 students:

2025
2,379
2027
2,289
2029
2,202

≈ 223 fewer students by 2029 — a real revenue/relevance risk worth getting ahead of.

An extrapolation of the recent trajectory, not a forecast of the school's plans; ignores one-off shocks.

Revenue at risk

At $17,722 per student in district revenue, the 223 students projected to be lost by 2029 represent ≈ $3,952,006/year in funding at risk.

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.

SchoolTypeMilesHS enrollmentTrend
Indio High
Indio
Public 2.4 1,962 -2.7%
Coachella Valley High
Thermal
Public 6.6 2,300 -15.5%
Palm Desert High
Palm Desert
Public 4.7 2,079 -2.0%
Shadow Hills High
Indio
Public 3.6 1,650 -15.5%
Desert Mirage High
Thermal
Public 11.9 1,875 -10.8%
Hemet High
Hemet
Public 37.6 2,414 +0.3%
Orange Vista High
Perris
Public 53.3 2,396 -8.3%
San Jacinto High
San Jacinto
Public 39.9 2,388 -9.8%

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