Walnut Creek Campus
West Des Moines · IA · West Des Moines Comm School District · Public
📄 Shareable scorecard →Similar nearby schools
Most similar nearby schools
Dowling Catholic High School → Roosevelt High School → Valley High School → Ruby Van Meter → Urbandale High School → Hoover High School → Lincoln High School → North High School →📋 At a glance
- 🎓 AP rigor: Bottom 22% of US high schools
- 📝 SAT/ACT participation: Bottom 31% by test-taker volume
- 🎓 4-yr grad rate: 72% (Bottom 16% of US high schools by 4-yr grad rate)
Composed from federal CRDC offerings, EDFacts ACGR, and other public data. Full breakdowns below.
How Walnut Creek Campus compares for families
What families should know about Walnut Creek Campus.
- ▸ LocallyIA students outperform the US average on NAEP 8th-grade math (+8 points).
- ▸ vs Similar SchoolsThe closest comparables nearby: Dowling Catholic High School, Roosevelt High School, Valley High School and 5 more. See the sidebar to compare side-by-side.
For Parents
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SAT / ACT participation
CRDC federal data · 2020-21Bottom 31% 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?
Bottom 16% of US high schools by 4-yr grad rate
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.
Chronic absenteeism
Why this matters to enrollment: Chronic absence is the most reliable early indicator that a student will leave a school — either by transferring out, dropping out, or matriculating to a charter or private alternative. At this level, today's absentees become next year's enrollment loss and the year-after's revenue loss. 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.
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 +5.6%/year, projecting from 2024's 152 students:
An extrapolation of the recent trajectory, not a forecast of the school's plans; ignores one-off shocks.
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Dowling Catholic High School West Des Moines |
Private | 0.8 | 1,389 | +0.7% |
| Roosevelt High School Des Moines |
Public | 1.9 | 2,051 | -0.6% |
| Valley High School West Des Moines |
Public | 2.1 | 2,178 | +6.3% |
| Ruby Van Meter Des Moines |
Public | 3.0 | 68 | -5.6% |
| Urbandale High School Urbandale |
Public | 3.6 | 1,301 | -1.3% |
| Hoover High School Des Moines |
Public | 3.8 | 898 | -6.4% |
| Lincoln High School Des Moines |
Public | 4.8 | 2,364 | +0.1% |
| North High School Des Moines |
Public | 5.2 | 1,428 | -0.3% |