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Balboa High

San Francisco · CA · San Francisco Unified · Public

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📚AP rigor: 90th percentile nationally 📖11 AP courses

📋 At a glance

Programs & features
  • 📚 11 AP courses offered — Elite
  • ✅ Dual-enrollment program (college credit while in HS)
  • ✅ Gifted & talented program
  • 🔢 4 calculus classes · 14 physics · 4 chemistry
Academic signals
  • 🎓 AP rigor: 90th percentile nationally
  • 🎓 4-yr grad rate: 91% (54th percentile nationally)

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

💡

How Balboa High compares for families

Standout academic depth by national standards.

  • StatewideAP rigor in the top 10% nationally with 11 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: City Arts & Leadership Academy, Wen Jian Ying, Archbishop Riordan High School 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

90th percentile nationally

50th 90th ↑ this school
Less rigorMore rigorMost rigor
AP courses offered
11
Math ✓ · Science ✓
Advanced math classes
8
4 calculus · 4 advanced
Lab science classes
18
14 physics · 4 chemistry
Other rigor signals
✅ Dual-enrollment program
✅ 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 · 2020-21
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?

54th percentile nationally

50th 90th
4-year graduation rate
91%
Single-point estimate
4-year cohort size
280
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.

👩‍🏫 Teacher workforce · federal CRDC

Teacher experience & reliability

% inexperienced teachers (1st-2nd yr)
50.1%
Elevated — a quarter or more of teachers are in years 1-2. Often correlates with school instability.
% chronic teacher absence (≥10 days/yr)
17.7%
Elevated. Teacher absence directly affects classroom continuity and student outcomes.

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

63.7%
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)

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

Student : Counselor
322:1
Above the ASCA 250:1 target but below the US median (~430:1). Capacity is workable.
Counselor FTE
3.9
Full-time-equivalent school counselors on staff.
Teacher FTE
64
Full-time-equivalent classroom teachers.

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

Grade 12 went from 308 in 2021 to 332 in 2024 — over 3 years.
+7.8%

Total enrollment + grade 12, NCES Common Core of Data (2021–2024).

If the recent trend holds…

At its recent rate of -0.6%/year, projecting from 2024's 1,238 students:

2025
1,230
2027
1,214
2029
1,199

≈ 39 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 $23,716 per student in district revenue, the 39 students projected to be lost by 2029 represent ≈ $924,924/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.

SchoolTypeMilesHS enrollmentTrend
City Arts & Leadership Academy
San Francisco
Public · charter 0.2 397 +71.1%
Wen Jian Ying
San Francisco
Private 0.6 7
Archbishop Riordan High School
San Francisco
Private 0.8 976 +41.2%
San Francisco Christian School
San Francisco
Private 0.8 258 +8.9%
Jordan (June) School for Equity
San Francisco
Public 0.9 176 -15.4%
Asawa (Ruth) SF Sch of the Arts A Public School
San Francisco
Public 1.7 680 -9.3%
Academy (The)- SF @McAteer
San Francisco
Public 1.7 123 -64.6%
S.F. County Court Woodside Learning Ctr
San Francisco
Public 1.8 16

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