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Santa Monica High

Santa Monica · CA · Santa Monica-Malibu Unified · Public

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📖12 AP courses 🎓95% 4-yr grad rate

📋 At a glance

Programs & features
  • 📚 12 AP courses offered — Elite
  • 🔢 14 calculus classes
Academic signals
  • 🎓 AP rigor: 68th percentile nationally
  • 📝 SAT/ACT participation: 81th percentile by test-taker volume
  • 🎓 4-yr grad rate: 95% (75th percentile nationally)

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

💡

How Santa Monica High compares for families

Stronger-than-average college-prep profile.

  • StatewideAP rigor at the 68th percentile nationally with 12 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: Olympic High (Continuation), St Monica Catholic High School, Crossroads School For Arts & Sciences 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

68th percentile nationally

50th 90th ↑ this school
Less rigorMore rigorMost rigor
AP courses offered
12
Math ✓
Advanced math classes
18
14 calculus · 4 advanced
Other rigor signals
No dual-enrollment or gifted program reported

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

81th percentile by test-taker volume

50th 90th
SAT/ACT test-takers
252
11th-12th graders who took 1+ college admissions test
Test-taking intensity
9.7
takers per 100 students in grades 9-12
Compared against
18,426
US high schools reporting SAT/ACT participation

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?

75th percentile nationally

50th 90th
4-year graduation rate
95%
Single-point estimate
4-year cohort size
655
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)
42.8%
Elevated — a quarter or more of teachers are in years 1-2. Often correlates with school instability.
% chronic teacher absence (≥10 days/yr)
7.1%
Around the national average. Worth watching.

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 Targeted Assistance eligible

35-39% FRPL — qualifies for Title I Targeted Assistance

35.4%
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)

35-39% of students qualify for free/reduced lunch. The school can receive Title I funds targeted to identified students (not schoolwide).

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
199:1
Below the ASCA 250:1 recommendation — strong capacity for college planning, course selection, and student supports.
Counselor FTE
13.0
Full-time-equivalent school counselors on staff.
Teacher FTE
132
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 719 in 2021 to 710 in 2024 — over 3 years.
-1.3%

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

If the recent trend holds…

At its recent rate of -2.7%/year, projecting from 2024's 2,588 students:

2025
2,519
2027
2,387
2029
2,262

≈ 326 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 $26,928 per student in district revenue, the 326 students projected to be lost by 2029 represent ≈ $8,778,528/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
Olympic High (Continuation)
Santa Monica
Public 0.6 30
St Monica Catholic High School
Santa Monica
Private 1.1 371 -6.8%
Crossroads School For Arts & Sciences
Santa Monica
Private 1.1 1,213 +3.0%
Pacifica Christian High School
Santa Monica
Private 1.2 262 +14.4%
Animo Venice Charter High
Venice
Public · charter 1.7 335 -32.6%
Lighthouse Christian Academy
Santa Monica
Private 1.8 44
New Roads School
Santa Monica
Private 1.9 548 +7.5%
New West Charter
Los Angeles
Public · charter 2.4 565 -5.8%

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