Salinas High
Salinas · CA · Salinas Union High · Public
Similar nearby schools
Most similar nearby schools
Palma School → Notre Dame High School → Monterey County Special Education → Monterey County Home Charter → Open Door Charter → Mount Toro High → Carr Lake Community Day → El Puente →📋 At a glance
- 📚 16 AP courses offered — Elite
- ✅ Dual-enrollment program (college credit while in HS)
- 🔢 4 calculus classes · 2 physics · 58 chemistry
- 🎓 AP rigor: 90th percentile nationally
- 📝 SAT/ACT participation: Bottom 20% by test-taker volume
- 🎓 4-yr grad rate: 93% (67th percentile nationally)
Composed from federal CRDC offerings, EDFacts ACGR, and other public data. Full breakdowns below.
How Salinas High compares for families
Standout academic depth by national standards.
- ▸ StatewideAP rigor in the top 10% nationally with 16 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: Palma School, Notre Dame High School, Monterey County Special Education and 5 more. See the sidebar to compare side-by-side.
Follow Salinas High
Get an email when Salinas High's numbers change — new admissions results, enrollment shifts, test scores. A few updates a year, no spam.
🎓 Academic rigor
AP + advanced-course offerings
Elite — exceptional AP + advanced course breadth
90th percentile nationally
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 20% 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?
67th 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
High-poverty school
Title I Schoolwide eligible
≥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.
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 -3.7%/year, projecting from 2024's 2,380 students:
≈ 413 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 $17,989 per student in district revenue, the 413 students projected to be lost by 2029 represent ≈ $7,429,457/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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Palma School Salinas |
Private | 0.4 | 457 | -6.5% |
| Notre Dame High School Salinas |
Private | 0.6 | 177 | -12.8% |
| Monterey County Special Education Salinas |
Public | 1.4 | 37 | — |
| Monterey County Home Charter Salinas |
Public · charter | 1.4 | 152 | -9.0% |
| Open Door Charter Salinas |
Public · charter | 1.4 | 53 | — |
| Mount Toro High Salinas |
Public | 1.5 | 204 | -0.5% |
| Carr Lake Community Day Salinas |
Public | 1.5 | 14 | — |
| El Puente Salinas |
Public | 1.5 | 310 | +3.3% |