📋 At a glance
- ✅ Dual-enrollment program (college credit while in HS)
- ✅ Gifted & talented program
- 🎓 AP rigor: Bottom 44% of US high schools
- 📝 SAT/ACT participation: Bottom 24% by test-taker volume
- 🎓 4-yr grad rate: 97% (90th percentile nationally)
Composed from federal CRDC offerings, EDFacts ACGR, and other public data. Full breakdowns below.
How Cardinal High School compares for families
Solid mid-tier academic profile.
- ▸ LocallyIA students outperform the US average on NAEP 8th-grade math (+8 points).
- ▸ vs Similar SchoolsThe closest comparables nearby: Ottumwa High School, Gateway High School, Ottumwa Christian School and 5 more. See the sidebar to compare side-by-side.
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SAT / ACT participation
CRDC federal data · 2020-21Bottom 24% 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?
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.
👩🏫 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.
Chronic absenteeism
Why this matters to enrollment: Chronic absence is the strongest early indicator of dropout, transfer-out, and family disengagement. A school's absenteeism trend forecasts its enrollment trend 1-3 years out. For school leaders: an Enrollment Trend Audit traces this dynamic forward →
Source: U.S. Department of Education, Civil Rights Data Collection 2020–2021. Rate = students chronically absent ÷ 2024 total enrollment.
Enrollment trend & projection
Total enrollment + grade 12, NCES Common Core of Data (2021–2024).
If the recent trend holds…
At its recent rate of -1.3%/year, projecting from 2024's 270 students:
≈ 17 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 $13,324 per student in district revenue, the 17 students projected to be lost by 2029 represent ≈ $226,508/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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ottumwa High School Ottumwa |
Public | 9.5 | 910 | -34.0% |
| Gateway High School Ottumwa |
Public | 10.7 | 213 | +13.9% |
| Ottumwa Christian School Ottumwa |
Private | 11.1 | 74 | -22.9% |
| Pekin Community Junior/ Senior High School Packwood |
Public | 14.0 | 171 | -13.2% |
| Maharishi School Fairfield |
Private | 14.6 | 113 | -18.1% |
| Fairfield High School Fairfield |
Public | 15.1 | 442 | -9.2% |
| Davis County Community High School Bloomfield |
Public | 16.9 | 358 | -8.0% |
| Van Buren County Community Middle & High School Keosauqua |
Public | 21.3 | 222 | -7.5% |