PEARCE H S
RICHARDSON · TX · RICHARDSON ISD · Public
Similar nearby schools
Most similar nearby schools
PLANO SR H S → RICHARDSON H S → BERKNER H S → W T WHITE H S → PLANO WEST SENIOR H S → GARLAND H S → TURNER H S → SMITH H S →📋 At a glance
- 📚 30 AP courses offered — Elite
- ✅ Dual-enrollment program (college credit while in HS)
- ✅ Gifted & talented program
- 🔢 9 calculus classes · 35 physics · 25 chemistry
- 🎓 AP rigor: Top 3.7% of US high schools
- 📝 SAT/ACT participation: Top 1.7% by test-taker volume
Composed from federal CRDC offerings, EDFacts ACGR, and other public data. Full breakdowns below.
🎓 Where grads go
Source: TEA/THECB college-enrollment figures. Full Texas Reach detail below.
How PEARCE H S 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 30 AP courses.
- ▸ LocallyTX students outperform the US average on NAEP 8th-grade math (+4 points).
- ▸ vs Similar SchoolsThe closest comparables nearby: PLANO SR H S, RICHARDSON H S, BERKNER H S 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 · 2020-21Top 1.7% 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.
👩🏫 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 Texas at Austin
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 $19,857/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.
💰 Pay for college in Texas
Texas's public scholarships
Texas families have two big levers: a guaranteed-admission rule for the top of each graduating class, and the need-based TEXAS Grant that pairs with it. Class rank does more here than almost anywhere.
Graduate in the top 10% of your Texas public-HS class and finish the required curriculum for automatic admission to TX public universities (UT Austin caps at the top 5%). (Must finish the required college-prep curriculum (Distinguished plan).)
Official program details ↗Texas's flagship need-based grant — no GPA gate to qualify (a 3.0 or top-third rank just gives priority when funds run short). (Enroll within 16 months of HS, ≥¾ time, in a bachelor's program.)
Official program details ↗Graduate at least a semester early with the Distinguished plan plus a 3.0 GPA and an 80th-percentile test (or top-10% rank) for a TEXAS Grant-sized scholarship. (Graduate at least a semester early with the Distinguished plan.)
Official program details ↗Eligibility rules change yearly — confirm with the official program before relying on it. Amounts are recent published figures; awards cover tuition/fees, not housing or books unless noted. Verified 2026-06-14.
🤘 Texas Reach
Where this school's graduates land after high school.
What share of Pearce HS's 2022 graduating class enrolled in college the following fall — and how that splits across Texas higher education. Source-of-truth for college-going at the high-school level in Texas.
Richardson ISD.
Source: TEA TAPR 2022-23, Domain 4 CCMR + Higher Ed Enrollment. Headline rate is "enrolled in Texas higher ed the following fall." Initial dataset covers a curated set of high-profile TX high schools — full per-school ingest pending the THECB open-records data response.
⭐ Texas School Quality
How TEA grades this school: CCMR + A-F accountability.
Two cohort-level signals TEA publishes for every Texas public high school: the share of graduates ready for college, career, or military service (CCMR), and the state's official A-F accountability grade.
What counts as CCMR-ready? →
Under TEA TAPR Domain 4, a graduate counts as CCMR-ready if they meet any one of: a qualifying SAT/ACT score; a qualifying TSI assessment; AP/IB exam scores of 3+; dual-credit college courses with C or better; an associate's degree at HS graduation; an industry-based certification; an OnRamps course; military enlistment; or an aligned career-prep program. The metric rolls up "is this graduate prepared for what comes next?" into one comparable number.
Source: TEA TAPR 2022-23 — Domain 4 CCMR + A-F Accountability. CCMR cohort = HS Class of 2023. A-F grade per Texas Education Code §39.054. Initial dataset is high-profile Texas HSs only — full ingest follows the TEA TAPR downloadable-file processing.
Chronic absenteeism
Why this matters to enrollment: Chronic absence is the strongest early indicator of dropout, transfer-out, and family disengagement. A school's absenteeism trend forecasts its enrollment trend 1-3 years out. 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 -1.4%/year, projecting from 2024's 2,317 students:
≈ 158 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 $13,625 per student in district revenue, the 158 students projected to be lost by 2029 represent ≈ $2,152,750/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.
| School | Type | Miles | HS enrollment | Trend |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| PLANO SR H S PLANO |
Public | 4.0 | 2,267 | -7.5% |
| RICHARDSON H S RICHARDSON |
Public | 1.4 | 2,669 | -4.3% |
| BERKNER H S RICHARDSON |
Public | 5.0 | 2,350 | -1.8% |
| W T WHITE H S DALLAS |
Public | 5.3 | 2,204 | +5.5% |
| PLANO WEST SENIOR H S PLANO |
Public | 5.6 | 2,559 | -3.2% |
| GARLAND H S GARLAND |
Public | 8.3 | 2,335 | -2.1% |
| TURNER H S CARROLLTON |
Public | 7.3 | 2,035 | -2.6% |
| SMITH H S CARROLLTON |
Public | 7.2 | 1,971 | -3.0% |