Compare with peers
Most similar nearby schools
Academy of the Redwoods → Pacific View Charter 2.0 → East High (continuation) → Redwood Coast Montessori → Northcoast Preparatory And Performing Arts Academy → Compare all similar →📋 At a glance
- 📚 5 AP courses offered — Strong
- 🔢 2 calculus classes · 1 physics · 5 chemistry
- 🎓 AP rigor: 54th percentile nationally
- 🎓 4-yr grad rate: 95% (75th percentile nationally)
Composed from federal CRDC offerings, EDFacts ACGR, and other public data. Full breakdowns below.
How Ferndale High School compares for families
Solid mid-tier academic profile.
- ▸ StatewideAP rigor at the 54th percentile nationally with 5 AP courses.
- ▸ Locally🎯 Top 7 in Humboldt County on Attendance (lowest chronic absenteeism).
- ▸ vs Similar SchoolsThe closest comparables nearby: Academy of the Redwoods, Pacific View Charter 2.0, East High (continuation) and 2 more. See the sidebar to compare side-by-side.
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🎓 Academic rigor
AP + advanced-course offerings
Strong — solid AP program + advanced courses
54th 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 · 2020-21Source: 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?
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.
🏛️ 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.
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 in the typical CA HS range. Worth monitoring alongside the demand and retention signals above.
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 (-1.6%/yr, Total enrollment)
At per-pupil funding of $ / student:
| Horizon | Projected Total enrollment | Change | Funding impact / yr |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 yr (2027) | ~143 | -2 | $0 |
| 3 yr (2029) | ~138 | -7 | $0 |
| 5 yr (2031) | ~134 | -11 | $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.
Ferndale High School — Enrollment & Outcomes Snapshot
Public · Ferndale · vs. 10 most similar nearby schools
- ▸Senior-class enrollment is down 11% (37→33 from 2018 to 2026), trailing the peer-group median of -1%.
- ▸At its recent rate (-1.7%/yr), enrollment projects to ~138 by 2029 — about 7 fewer students than today.
Enrollment projection
That's about 7 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 Score | Enroll. trend |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ferndale High School | Public | 145 | — | -11% |
| Peer-group median | 57 | -1% | ||
| Academy of the Redwoods | Public | 151 | 51 | +58% |
| Pacific View Charter 2.0 | Public | 130 | — | +33% |
| East High (continuation) | Public | 74 | — | -2% |
| Redwood Coast Montessori | Public | 205 | — | +150% |
| Northcoast Preparatory And Performing Arts Academy | Public | 109 | — | -29% |
| Six Rivers Charter School | Public | 107 | — | +21% |
| Northern United - Humboldt Charter | Public | 349 | — | -6% |
| Zoe Barnum High | Public | 49 | — | -27% |
| Agnes J. Johnson Charter | Public | 79 | — | +0% |
| Mendocino High School | Public | 159 | 63 | -25% |
UC Reach Score = 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 Humboldt County baseline — the demographic tide is moving every CA HS, so a school's gap vs. county is the actionable signal.
Ferndale High School's enrollment is shrinking far faster than Humboldt County (school -10.8% vs. county +41.0%). Stability of 93.9% means every family you keep is one fewer; the leverage is at recruitment, not retention. This is the case the high stability number alone would hide.
9 of 148 students who enrolled at Ferndale High School this year didn't maintain continuous enrollment (6.1% 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 — Ferndale Unified (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: 31.8%
Federal: 14.4%
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 Ferndale Unified 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 Score | Yield | Avg GPA (App) | Avg GPA (Adm) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| UC Berkeley → Elite | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| UCLA → Elite | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| UC Santa Barbara → Selective | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| UC Davis → | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
What This Means
For School Admins
The full Reach Report for Ferndale 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 -1.6%/yr) with the revenue at stake
- ✓Student-retention benchmarking vs your county median — and the LCAP evidence to back your goals