Mountain Empire High School
Pine Valley · San Diego County · Mountain Empire Unified · Public
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Most similar nearby schools
Diego Valley East Public Charter → Learning Choice Academy - Chula Vista → Altus Schools East County → The Learning Choice Academy - East County → Greater San Diego Academy → Compare all similar →📋 At a glance
- 📚 2 AP courses offered — Moderate
- ✅ Dual-enrollment program (college credit while in HS)
- 🎓 AP rigor: Bottom 37% of US high schools
- 🎓 4-yr grad rate: 97% (90th percentile nationally)
Composed from federal CRDC offerings, EDFacts ACGR, and other public data. Full breakdowns below.
How Mountain Empire High School compares for families
Solid mid-tier academic profile.
- ▸ vs Similar SchoolsThe closest comparables nearby: Diego Valley East Public Charter, Learning Choice Academy - Chula Vista, Altus Schools East County and 2 more. See the sidebar to compare side-by-side.
For Parents
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🎓 Academic rigor
AP + advanced-course offerings
Moderate — some AP / advanced course access
Bottom 37% of US high schools
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?
90th 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 up 20.4 pp since 2016-17. A rising absenteeism trend often precedes formal departure — worth investigating which subgroups are driving it.
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 (+0.4%/yr, Total enrollment)
At per-pupil funding of $ / student:
| Horizon | Projected Total enrollment | Change | Funding impact / yr |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 yr (2027) | ~400 | +2 | $0 |
| 3 yr (2029) | ~403 | +5 | $0 |
| 5 yr (2031) | ~407 | +9 | $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.
Mountain Empire High School — Enrollment & Outcomes Snapshot
Public · Pine Valley · vs. 10 most similar nearby schools
- ▸On UC Reach, Mountain Empire High School sits near the top of its similar-school group (ranked #2 of 3): 12% vs. a peer median of 24%.
- ▸Its UC Reach has risen 4 points since 2018.
- ▸Senior-class enrollment is up 7% (85→91 from 2018 to 2026), outpacing the peer-group median of -14%.
- ▸Enrollment has been growing (+0.3%/yr); projects to ~401 by 2029.
Enrollment projection
Your school vs. its 10 most similar nearby schools
| School | Type | Size | UC Reach | Enroll. trend |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mountain Empire High School | Public | 398 | 11.8% | +7% |
| Peer-group median | 23.8% | -14% | ||
| Diego Valley East Public Charter | Public | 408 | — | -70% |
| Learning Choice Academy - Chula Vista | Public | 466 | — | -7% |
| Altus Schools East County | Public | 297 | — | -16% |
| The Learning Choice Academy - East County | Public | 529 | — | +12% |
| Greater San Diego Academy | Public | 196 | — | -23% |
| High Tech High Chula Vista | Public | 628 | 36.4% | -12% |
| America's Finest Charter | Public | 334 | — | -6% |
| Diego Hills Central Public Charter | Public | 301 | — | -54% |
| Jcs Manzanita | Public | 245 | — | -78% |
| River Valley Charter School | Public | 170 | 11.1% | -10% |
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 San Diego County baseline — the demographic tide is moving every CA HS, so a school's gap vs. county is the actionable signal.
Enrollment growth is beating San Diego County (+7.1% vs. -7.8%), but 95 of 448 students didn't maintain continuous enrollment. Why are families leaving once enrolled? Chronic absenteeism is also at 43.9% (up +20.5 pts from 2016-17) — engagement and demand are both signaling decline.
95 of 448 students who enrolled at Mountain Empire High School this year didn't maintain continuous enrollment (21.2% 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 — Mountain Empire 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: 31.2%
Federal: 17.9%
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 Mountain Empire 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).
UC funnel — which kids are getting in at what GPA
Combining the school's applicant pool GPA, admit pool GPA, actual admit rate, and statewide CA admit rates by individual GPA band, we can read which GPA tiers tend to get in — and which don't.
| Campus | 4.00+ GPA | 3.70–3.99 GPA | 3.30–3.69 GPA | < 3.30 GPA |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| UC San Diego | Strong shot | Real shot | Long odds | Filtered out |
The numbers behind it
| Campus | Applicant GPA | Admit GPA | Lift ⓘ | Admit rate | vs peer schools @ same GPA ⓘ |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| UC San Diego (2020) | 3.95 | 4.22 | +0.27 | 50.0% | Peers +0.27 · matches |
📊 Statewide CA admit rates by individual GPA band, 2024 (for reference)
| GPA band | UCB | UCLA | UCSD | UCSB | UCI | UCD |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 4.00+ | 17.1% | 14.4% | 43.5% | 57.3% | 46.0% | 64.1% |
| 3.70–3.99 | 2.8% | 1.5% | 11.2% | 9.2% | 16.5% | 27.5% |
| 3.30–3.69 | 0.8% | 0.9% | 1.4% | 2.3% | 3.4% | 9.1% |
| 3.00–3.29 | 0.5% | 0.4% | 0.1% | 0.5% | 0.4% | 2.1% |
| < 3.00 | 0.6% | 0.2% | 0.2% | 0.5% | 0.3% | 0.6% |
UC Outcomes Trend — 2018–2024
Class size from CDE grade 12 enrollment. Campus-level data — applicant/admit totals may count a student at multiple campuses more than once.
Campus Breakdown — 2024
| Campus | Applicants | Admits | Enrollees | Admit Rate | UC Reach | Yield | Avg GPA (App) | Avg GPA (Adm) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| UC Berkeley → Elite | 5 | —† | —† | —† | —† | — | 3.86 | —† |
| UCLA → Elite | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| UC San Diego → Selective | 8 | —† | —† | —† | —† | — | 3.62 | —† |
| UC Santa Barbara → Selective | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| UC Irvine → Selective | 7 | —† | —† | —† | —† | — | 3.88 | —† |
| UC Davis → | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
What This Means
For School Admins
The full Reach Report for Mountain Empire 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 0.4%/yr) with the revenue at stake
- ✓Student-retention benchmarking vs your county median — and the LCAP evidence to back your goals