Valley Center High
Valley Center · CA · Valley Center-Pauma Unified · Public
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Most similar nearby schools
River Springs Charter → Sage Creek High → Mission Vista High → Vista High → Ramona High → Rancho Buena Vista High → Altus Schools Charter School of San Diego → La Costa Canyon High →📋 At a glance
- 📚 12 AP courses offered — Elite
- 🔢 3 calculus classes · 2 physics · 4 chemistry
- 🎓 AP rigor: 82th percentile nationally
- 📝 SAT/ACT participation: Bottom 19% by test-taker volume
- 🎓 4-yr grad rate: 95% (75th percentile nationally)
Composed from federal CRDC offerings, EDFacts ACGR, and other public data. Full breakdowns below.
How Valley Center High compares for families
Stronger-than-average college-prep profile.
- ▸ StatewideAP rigor in the top 18% nationally with 12 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: River Springs Charter, Sage Creek High, Mission Vista High 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
82th percentile nationally
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 · 2020-21Bottom 19% 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?
75th percentile nationally
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 -4.6%/year, projecting from 2024's 1,075 students:
≈ 228 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 $15,008 per student in district revenue, the 228 students projected to be lost by 2029 represent ≈ $3,421,824/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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| River Springs Charter Temecula |
Public · charter | 17.8 | 987 | -2.8% |
| Sage Creek High Carlsbad |
Public | 17.2 | 1,289 | -11.2% |
| Mission Vista High Oceanside |
Public | 13.9 | 1,670 | +0.7% |
| Vista High Vista |
Public | 13.1 | 1,746 | -21.7% |
| Ramona High Ramona |
Public | 19.6 | 1,404 | -9.1% |
| Rancho Buena Vista High Vista |
Public | 15.2 | 1,949 | -3.8% |
| Altus Schools Charter School of San Diego San Diego |
Public · charter | 27.6 | 1,162 | -4.4% |
| La Costa Canyon High Carlsbad |
Public | 18.5 | 1,774 | +7.7% |