Similar nearby schools
Most similar nearby schools
City Heights Preparatory Charter → Riley/New Dawn → America's Finest Charter → East Hills Academy → Urban Discovery Academy Charter → Greater San Diego Academy → Options Secondary → Mountain Valley Academy →📋 At a glance
- 🎓 AP rigor: Bottom 14% of US high schools
- 🎓 4-yr grad rate: 49% (Bottom 10% of US high schools by 4-yr grad rate)
Composed from federal CRDC offerings, EDFacts graduation data, and other public data. Full breakdowns below.
How MERIT Academy compares for families
What families should know about MERIT Academy.
- ▸ LocallyCA trails the US average on NAEP 8th-grade math (−4 points). Stronger local schools matter even more.
- ▸ vs Similar SchoolsThe closest comparables nearby: City Heights Preparatory Charter, Riley/New Dawn, America's Finest Charter and 5 more. See the sidebar to compare side-by-side.
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Objective, government-grade data — no school pays us for placement.
SAT / ACT participation
CRDC federal data · 2020-21Source: 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 10% 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
Title I Schoolwide eligible
≥40% FRPL — qualifies for Title I Schoolwide program
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
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 -1.6%/year, projecting from 2024's 68 students:
A small or specialty program — naive trend math doesn't capture the school's full picture. Read the trend as directional, not predictive.
An extrapolation of the recent trajectory, not a forecast of the school's plans; ignores one-off shocks.
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| City Heights Preparatory Charter San Diego |
Public · charter | 7.2 | 83 | +20.3% |
| Riley/New Dawn San Diego |
Public | 11.5 | 63 | -17.1% |
| America's Finest Charter San Diego |
Public · charter | 9.9 | 86 | -21.8% |
| East Hills Academy Chula Vista |
Public | 14.5 | 65 | +20.4% |
| Urban Discovery Academy Charter San Diego |
Public · charter | 12.3 | 51 | -50.5% |
| Greater San Diego Academy Jamul |
Public · charter | 9.5 | 41 | — |
| Options Secondary San Diego |
Public | 16.9 | 57 | -1.7% |
| Mountain Valley Academy Ramona |
Public | 15.6 | 87 | -16.3% |