El Puente High School
Salinas · Monterey County · Salinas Union High · Public
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Most similar nearby schools
Monterey County Home Charter → Mount Toro High → Anzar High School → Learning For Life Charter Schl → Santa Cruz County Career Advancement Charter → Compare all similar →📋 At a glance
- 🎓 AP rigor: Bottom 18% of US high schools
- 🎓 4-yr grad rate: 17% (Bottom 2% of US high schools by 4-yr grad rate)
Composed from federal CRDC offerings, EDFacts ACGR, and other public data. Full breakdowns below.
How El Puente High School compares for families
What families should know about El Puente High School.
- ▸ vs Similar SchoolsThe closest comparables nearby: Monterey County Home Charter, Mount Toro High, Anzar High School and 2 more. See the sidebar to compare side-by-side.
For Parents
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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 2% 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.
🏛️ Federal Title I context
High-poverty school
Title I Schoolwide eligible
≥75% of students qualify for free/reduced lunch. These schools qualify for the highest tier of federal Title I funding and typically receive extra wraparound services. Academic outcomes vary widely — check the state assessment + grad-rate tiles.
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.
SBAC academic outcomes — grade 11, 2025
Share of grade-11 students meeting or exceeding the California standard on Smarter Balanced ELA and Math. This is the academic-readiness signal that pairs with UC Reach (post-grad outcomes), stability (retention), and absenteeism (engagement). Note: statewide median Math is only ~20% — a school at 20% isn't an outlier; one at 45%+ genuinely is.
Source: California Assessment of Student Performance and Progress (CAASPP) Smarter Balanced research files. Benchmarks limited to non-virtual public & charter HS with ≥30 tested students.
Student composition — 2025-26
HS grades 9–12 racial/ethnic composition and program subgroups, from CDE Census Day Enrollment. Two-year shift shown when ≥1 pt — surfaces how the community served has changed since 2023-24.
Race / ethnicity
Program subgroups
Source: California Department of Education, Census Day Enrollment 2025-26 (HS grades 9–12). Δ shown when shift is ≥1 pt since 2023-24. Categories below 0.5% omitted.
Chronic absenteeism — 2024-25
Share of students missing 10% or more of expected attendance — the leading indicator that often precedes the demand decline shown above. Families disengaging tend to raise absenteeism first, then formally leave. Basis: grades 9–12.
Absenteeism is down 16.0 pp since 2016-17. Engagement improving — a positive trajectory worth understanding and reinforcing.
Source: California Department of Education, Chronic Absenteeism 2024-25. Benchmarks limited to non-virtual public & charter HS with ≥100 eligible students. CDE didn't publish a usable 2019-20 file (COVID).
Enrollment trend & projection
If this trend holds (+0.2%/yr, Total enrollment)
At per-pupil funding of $ / student:
| Horizon | Projected Total enrollment | Change | Funding impact / yr |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 yr (2027) | ~244 | +1 | $0 |
| 3 yr (2029) | ~245 | +2 | $0 |
| 5 yr (2031) | ~246 | +3 | $0 |
Straight-line extrapolation of the recent annual rate — a what-if, not a forecast of intent. Default = California's LCFF base grant for grades 9–12 ($12,423/ADA). Edit the figure to match your school.
El Puente High School — Enrollment & Outcomes Snapshot
Public · Salinas · vs. 10 most similar nearby schools
- ▸Senior-class enrollment is down 45% (204→113 from 2018 to 2026), trailing the peer-group median of +2%.
- ▸At its recent rate (-4.1%/yr), enrollment projects to ~214 by 2029 — about 29 fewer students than today.
Enrollment projection
That's about 29 fewer students. At per-student funding of $ per student, that's roughly $0 in annual state funding at risk.
Default = California's LCFF base grant for grades 9–12 ($12,423 per ADA) — adjust to your district's actual per-pupil figure. Projection extrapolates the recent annual rate — not a forecast of intent.
Your school vs. its 10 most similar nearby schools
| School | Type | Size | UC Reach | Enroll. trend |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| El Puente High School | Public | 243 | — | -45% |
| Peer-group median | 9.2% | +2% | ||
| Monterey County Home Charter | Public | 260 | — | -32% |
| Mount Toro High | Public | 197 | — | +9% |
| Anzar High School | Public | 260 | 4.5% | -41% |
| Learning For Life Charter Schl | Public | 146 | — | -21% |
| Santa Cruz County Career Advancement Charter | Public | 235 | — | +390% |
| Dr. Tj Owens Gilroy Early College Academy | Public | 308 | — | +22% |
| Central Coast High School | Public | 98 | — | +40% |
| Ceiba College Preparatory Academy | Public | 494 | — | -26% |
| Pacific Grove High School | Public | 539 | 39.8% | -5% |
| Marina High | Public | 777 | 9.2% | +43% |
UC Reach = top-6 UC admits ÷ senior class (can exceed 100% when students are admitted to multiple campuses). Enrollment trend = first-to-latest grade-12 change on file. Similar schools matched on proximity, size, type. Methodology →
Enrollment stability & demand — 2024-25
Two complementary signals: retention (do students stay once enrolled?) and demand (are families choosing the school?). Read against the Monterey County baseline — the demographic tide is moving every CA HS, so a school's gap vs. county is the actionable signal.
Enrollment -44.6% vs. county +9.8% AND stability (54.5%) below the county median. Recruitment and retention both under pressure — likely a foundational rather than tactical problem. Chronic absenteeism is also at 63.5% (up -17.0 pts from 2016-17) — engagement and demand are both signaling decline.
204 of 448 students who enrolled at El Puente High School this year didn't maintain continuous enrollment (45.5% non-stability). Mid-year transfers, dropouts, and other exits are all counted.
Stability by student group
Nearest peer high schools
Source: California Department of Education, Stability Rate 2024-25. Benchmarks limited to non-virtual public & charter HS with ≥100 cumulative enrollees so by-design-high-churn continuation schools don't dominate the bottom of the distribution. Cumulative enrollment counts every student on the rolls during the year, so it can exceed peak-day enrollment.
District financial profile — Salinas Union High (FY2020)
From 4 years of NCES F-33 filings (the federally-mandated district finance survey). Public schools don't have their own books — the district does. These figures show the financial scale, revenue dependence, instruction-vs-overhead mix, and long-term debt that shape what a school can sustain.
Local: 18.9%
Federal: 10.6%
Source: NCES F-33 Annual Survey of School System Finances (Urban Institute Education Data API). Latest year currently published: FY2020. F-33 is a district-level federal filing — it reflects the Salinas Union High as a whole, not this individual school's books. Revenue mix shows where the district's dollars come from (state aid dominates in CA via LCFF). Instruction share is current expenditure on instruction ÷ total current expenditure (national benchmark ~60%). Long-term debt is end-of-year outstanding (mostly facilities bonds).
Campus Breakdown — 2024
| Campus | Applicants | Admits | Enrollees | Admit Rate | UC Reach | Yield | Avg GPA (App) | Avg GPA (Adm) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| UC Berkeley → Elite | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| UC San Diego → Selective | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| UC Irvine → Selective | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| UC Davis → | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
What This Means
For School Admins
The full Reach Report for El Puente High School
A board- and LCAP-ready intelligence brief: your enrollment retention and college outcomes, benchmarked against your closest competitors, with a 5-year forecast, concrete steps to act on, and the rigor + outcomes story you can share with your families. Built from primary public data — prepared for you, not auto-generated.
- ✓Your 5-year enrollment forecast (currently 0.2%/yr) with the revenue at stake
- ✓Student-retention benchmarking vs your county median — and the LCAP evidence to back your goals