Santa Barbara Senior High
Santa Barbara · CA · Santa Barbara Unified · Public
Similar nearby schools
Most similar nearby schools
Providence School → Anacapa School → La Cuesta Continuation High → St Therese Classical Academy → Providence School → Olive Grove Charter - Santa Barbara → Bishop Garcia Diego High School → Laguna Blanca School →📋 At a glance
- 📚 9 AP courses offered — Elite
- ✅ Dual-enrollment program (college credit while in HS)
- ✅ Gifted & talented program
- 🔢 2 calculus classes · 11 physics · 14 chemistry
- 🎓 AP rigor: 80th percentile nationally
- 📝 SAT/ACT participation: Bottom 23% by test-taker volume
- 🎓 4-yr grad rate: 91% (54th percentile nationally)
Composed from federal CRDC offerings, EDFacts ACGR, and other public data. Full breakdowns below.
How Santa Barbara Senior High compares for families
Stronger-than-average college-prep profile.
- ▸ StatewideAP rigor in the top 20% nationally with 9 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: Providence School, Anacapa School, La Cuesta Continuation 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
80th percentile nationally
✅ Gifted/talented program
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 23% 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?
54th 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 -4.0%/year, projecting from 2024's 1,924 students:
≈ 359 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 $17,980 per student in district revenue, the 359 students projected to be lost by 2029 represent ≈ $6,454,820/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.
Nearby high schools — the local competition
The closest high schools families here also consider, and where their enrollment is heading.
| School | Type | Miles | HS enrollment | Trend |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Providence School Santa Barbara |
Private | 0.2 | 245 | +4.3% |
| Anacapa School Santa Barbara |
Private | 0.5 | 48 | — |
| La Cuesta Continuation High Santa Barbara |
Public | 0.6 | 77 | -33.0% |
| St Therese Classical Academy Santa Barbara |
Private | 0.8 | 27 | — |
| Providence School Santa Barbara |
Private | 2.4 | 243 | +161.3% |
| Olive Grove Charter - Santa Barbara Santa Barbara |
Public · charter | 2.6 | 57 | -28.7% |
| Bishop Garcia Diego High School Santa Barbara |
Private | 3.8 | 263 | -0.8% |
| Laguna Blanca School Santa Barbara |
Private | 3.9 | 450 | +29.3% |