No UC admissions data on file for Vista Continuation High.

This school doesn't appear in UCOP's source-school records (it may send few or no applicants to UC). Its enrollment trend and similar-school comparison are still below.

Vista Continuation High

· Kern County · Kern High · Public

Public Kern County 🏛 Kern High → CDS 1563529…
📄 Shareable scorecard →

🎯Top 6 Attendance (lowest chronic absenteeism) in Kern

📋 At a glance

Programs & features
  • ✅ Dual-enrollment program (college credit while in HS)
Academic signals
  • 🎓 AP rigor: Bottom 18% of US high schools
  • 🎓 4-yr grad rate: 32% (Bottom 7% of US high schools by 4-yr grad rate)

Composed from federal CRDC offerings, EDFacts ACGR, and other public data. Full breakdowns below.

💡

How Vista Continuation High compares for families

What families should know about Vista Continuation High.

  • Locally🎯 Top 6 in Kern County on Attendance (lowest chronic absenteeism).
  • vs Similar SchoolsThe closest comparables nearby: Tierra Del Sol Continuation High, Valley Oaks Charter School, Vista West Continuation High and 2 more. See the sidebar to compare side-by-side.

For Parents

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SAT / ACT participation

CRDC federal data · 2020-21
SAT/ACT test-takers
0
11th-12th graders who took 1+ college admissions test
Test-taking intensity
0.0
takers per 100 students in grades 9-12

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?

Bottom 7% of US high schools by 4-yr grad rate

50th 90th
4-year graduation rate
32%
Range: 30–34%
4-year cohort size
136
Students in the 9th-grade entry class tracked over 4 years
Compared against
17,988
US high schools reporting 4-year ACGR

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

93.7%
FRPL rate — % of students who qualify for the federal Free or Reduced-Price Lunch program. This is the underlying federal income-eligibility signal Title I designations are computed from (ESEA Sec. 1113).
0% (no FRPL) 35% TA · 40% Schoolwide 100% (universal FRPL)

≥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.

ELA — met or exceeded
n = 114
13.2%
incl. 0.0% exceeded
-38.5 pts vs. Kern County median (51.7%) · CA median 54.3% · Top 10% statewide ≥ 79.3%
Math — met or exceeded
n = 110
0.9%
incl. 0.0% exceeded
-12.0 pts vs. Kern County median (12.9%) · CA median 21.1% · Top 10% statewide ≥ 53.6%

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

Hispanic / Latino 78% -2.8
Black / African Am. 16% +4.6
White 4% -2.9
American Indian 1%
Not reported 1%
Asian 0%

Program subgroups

Students w/ disabilities 99% +2.4
English learners 12% +6.1
Socioeconomically disadv. 8% -1.9

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.

Chronic absent
11.6%
40 of 344 students

Absenteeism is down 54.1 pp since 2016-17. Engagement improving — a positive trajectory worth understanding and reinforcing.

Kern County median
19.6% · school is better than 89% of 47 HS
Statewide median
22.9%
Chronic absenteeism by year (raw %)

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

Total enrollment (9–12)
285 (2018)211 (2026)
-26.0%
Grade 12 (graduating class)
182 (2018)145 (2026)
-20.3%

If this trend holds (-2.6%/yr, Total enrollment)

At per-pupil funding of $ / student:

Horizon Projected Total enrollment Change Funding impact / yr
1 yr (2027) ~205 -6 $0
3 yr (2029) ~195 -16 $0
5 yr (2031) ~185 -26 $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.

Vista Continuation High — Enrollment & Outcomes Snapshot

Public · vs. 10 most similar nearby schools

  • Senior-class enrollment is down 20% (182→145 from 2018 to 2026), trailing the peer-group median of -1%.
  • At its recent rate (-3.7%/yr), enrollment projects to ~189 by 2029 — about 22 fewer students than today.

Enrollment projection

211 students (2026)
~189 projected (2029)
at -3.7%/yr

That's about 22 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
Vista Continuation High Public 211 -20%
Peer-group median 7.0% -1%
Tierra Del Sol Continuation High Public 291 -3%
Valley Oaks Charter School Public 300 +1%
Vista West Continuation High Public 428 +47%
Kern Workforce 2000 Academy Public 483 +23%
Nueva Continuation High Public 80 -55%
Wasco Independence High Public 108 -8%
Central Valley High (continuation) Public 70 -4%
Frazier Mountain High School Public 260 -24%
Porterville Military Academy Public 285 +52%
Strathmore High School Public 292 7.0% +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 Kern County baseline — the demographic tide is moving every CA HS, so a school's gap vs. county is the actionable signal.

Critical
Compounding decline on both vectors.

Enrollment -20.3% vs. county +12.7% AND stability (36.1%) below the county median. Recruitment and retention both under pressure — likely a foundational rather than tactical problem.

-20.3%  school enrollment (2018–2026)
+12.7%  Kern County baseline
-33.0pp  gap vs. county
36.1%  retention (county median 84.4%)
Enrollment — indexed to 100 at 2018
Stability rate by year (raw %)
Stability rate
36.1%
130 of 360 students

230 of 360 students who enrolled at Vista Continuation High this year didn't maintain continuous enrollment (63.9% non-stability). Mid-year transfers, dropouts, and other exits are all counted.

Kern County median
84.4% · school is in the 17th percentile of 47 HS
Statewide median
87.2% · in the 10th percentile of 1,688 HS

Stability by student group

Socio. disadvantaged (341) 35.8%
Hispanic / Latino (282) 38.3%
English learners (57) 33.3%
Black / African Am. (40) 32.5%
Students w/ disabilities (32) 50.0%
White (21) 28.6%

Nearest peer high schools

Tierra Del Sol Continuation High 37.4% Valley Oaks Charter School 87.3% Vista West Continuation High 36.9% Kern Workforce 2000 Academy 35.6% Nueva Continuation High 30.3%

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 — Kern 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.

Total revenue
$740.6M
+25.7% since FY2017
Per-pupil revenue
$17,478
42,370 students enrolled
Revenue mix
State: 62.0%
Local: 25.3%
Federal: 12.7%
Instruction share
45.5%
of current spending · $6,660/pupil
Long-term debt
$376.0M
-11.0% since FY2017
Total revenue by year ($M)
Total expenditure by year ($M)

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 Kern 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).

For School Admins

The full Reach Report for Vista Continuation High

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 -2.6%/yr) with the revenue at stake
  • Student-retention benchmarking vs your county median — and the LCAP evidence to back your goals
See a sample report →

For Parents

Researching colleges for your kid at Vista Continuation High?

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