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South El Monte High

South El Monte · CA · El Monte Union High · Public

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📚AP rigor: 82th percentile nationally 📖18 AP courses

📋 At a glance

Programs & features
  • 📚 18 AP courses offered — Elite
  • ✅ Dual-enrollment program (college credit while in HS)
  • 🔢 2 calculus classes · 1 physics · 8 chemistry
Academic signals
  • 🎓 AP rigor: 82th percentile nationally
  • 📝 SAT/ACT participation: Bottom 6% 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 South El Monte High compares for families

Stronger-than-average college-prep profile.

  • StatewideAP rigor in the top 18% nationally with 18 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: El Monte High, Mountain View High, Don Bosco Technical Institute 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

82th percentile nationally

50th 90th ↑ this school
Less rigorMore rigorMost rigor
AP courses offered
18
Math ✓ · Science ✓
Advanced math classes
11
2 calculus · 9 advanced
Lab science classes
9
1 physics · 8 chemistry
Other rigor signals
✅ Dual-enrollment 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

Bottom 6% by test-taker volume

50th 90th
SAT/ACT test-takers
3
11th-12th graders who took 1+ college admissions test
Test-taking intensity
0.3
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?

67th percentile nationally

50th 90th
4-year graduation rate
93%
Single-point estimate
4-year cohort size
320
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)
6.5%
Strong: experienced corps. New teachers rotate through but most have ≥3 years in.
% chronic teacher absence (≥10 days/yr)
27.4%
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

High-poverty school

Title I Schoolwide eligible

92.3%
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)

≥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

Student : Counselor
281:1
Above the ASCA 250:1 target but below the US median (~430:1). Capacity is workable.
Counselor FTE
4.0
Full-time-equivalent school counselors on staff.
Teacher FTE
57
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 278 in 2021 to 308 in 2024 — over 3 years.
+10.8%

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

If the recent trend holds…

At its recent rate of -3.6%/year, projecting from 2024's 1,125 students:

2025
1,084
2027
1,007
2029
935

≈ 190 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 $22,591 per student in district revenue, the 190 students projected to be lost by 2029 represent ≈ $4,292,290/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
El Monte High
El Monte
Public 2.0 1,383 -12.9%
Mountain View High
El Monte
Public 2.2 1,123 -15.2%
Don Bosco Technical Institute
Rosemead
Private 2.5 317 -19.3%
New Life Christian School
El Monte
Private 2.5 42
Armenian Mesrobian School
Pico Rivera
Private 3.2 238 +16.7%
Fernando R. Ledesma Continuation High
El Monte
Public 3.7 293 -4.2%
Rosemead High
Rosemead
Public 3.7 1,691 -0.8%
Whittier High
Whittier
Public 3.9 1,652 -8.3%

For Parents

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