Bear River High School
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Colfax High School → John Muir Charter → Horizon Charter School → Placer High School → Western Sierra Collegiate Academy → Compare all similar →Enrollment trend & projection
If this trend holds (+0.8%/yr, Total enrollment)
At per-pupil funding of $ / student:
| Horizon | Projected Total enrollment | Change | Funding impact / yr |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 yr (2027) | ~658 | +5 | $0 |
| 3 yr (2029) | ~669 | +16 | $0 |
| 5 yr (2031) | ~681 | +28 | $0 |
Straight-line extrapolation of the recent annual rate — a what-if, not a forecast of intent. Default = California's LCFF base grant for grades 9–12 ($12,423/ADA). Edit the figure to match your school.
Enrollment stability & demand — 2024-25
Two complementary signals: retention (do students stay once enrolled?) and demand (are families choosing the school?). Read against the Nevada County baseline — the demographic tide is moving every CA HS, so a school's gap vs. county is the actionable signal.
Bear River High School is shrinking (-14.8%) but Nevada County is shrinking faster (-40.8%), so Bear River High School is winning roughly 26.0 pp of relative market share. Combined with 92.4% stability (county median 81.9%), this reflects a school that families actively chose during a market contraction. Replicable model — worth documenting what's working.
52 of 681 students who enrolled at Bear River High School this year didn't maintain continuous enrollment (7.6% non-stability). Mid-year transfers, dropouts, and other exits are all counted.
Stability by student group
Nearest peer high schools
Source: California Department of Education, Stability Rate 2024-25. Benchmarks limited to non-virtual public & charter HS with ≥100 cumulative enrollees so by-design-high-churn continuation schools don't dominate the bottom of the distribution. Cumulative enrollment counts every student on the rolls during the year, so it can exceed peak-day enrollment.
Chronic absenteeism — 2024-25
Share of students missing 10% or more of expected attendance — the leading indicator that often precedes the demand decline shown above. Families disengaging tend to raise absenteeism first, then formally leave. Basis: grades 9–12.
Absenteeism is in the typical CA HS range. Worth monitoring alongside the demand and retention signals above.
Source: California Department of Education, Chronic Absenteeism 2024-25. Benchmarks limited to non-virtual public & charter HS with ≥100 eligible students. CDE didn't publish a usable 2019-20 file (COVID).
SBAC academic outcomes — grade 11, 2025
Share of grade-11 students meeting or exceeding the California standard on Smarter Balanced ELA and Math. This is the academic-readiness signal that pairs with UC Reach (post-grad outcomes), stability (retention), and absenteeism (engagement). Note: statewide median Math is only ~20% — a school at 20% isn't an outlier; one at 45%+ genuinely is.
Source: California Assessment of Student Performance and Progress (CAASPP) Smarter Balanced research files. Benchmarks limited to non-virtual public & charter HS with ≥30 tested students.
Student composition — 2025-26
HS grades 9–12 racial/ethnic composition and program subgroups, from CDE Census Day Enrollment. Two-year shift shown when ≥1 pt — surfaces how the community served has changed since 2023-24.
Race / ethnicity
Program subgroups
Source: California Department of Education, Census Day Enrollment 2025-26 (HS grades 9–12). Δ shown when shift is ≥1 pt since 2023-24. Categories below 0.5% omitted.
District financial profile — Nevada Joint Union High (FY2020)
From 4 years of NCES F-33 filings (the federally-mandated district finance survey). Public schools don't have their own books — the district does. These figures show the financial scale, revenue dependence, instruction-vs-overhead mix, and long-term debt that shape what a school can sustain.
Local: 67.7%
Federal: 6.8%
Source: NCES F-33 Annual Survey of School System Finances (Urban Institute Education Data API). Latest year currently published: FY2020. F-33 is a district-level federal filing — it reflects the Nevada Joint Union High as a whole, not this individual school's books. Revenue mix shows where the district's dollars come from (state aid dominates in CA via LCFF). Instruction share is current expenditure on instruction ÷ total current expenditure (national benchmark ~60%). Long-term debt is end-of-year outstanding (mostly facilities bonds).
On the peer median (4.9%) · Ranked #5 of 8 similar schools
18.5%
4.9%
53.3%
4.6%
Higher than 3% of California high schools (1105 ranked, ≥50 seniors)
Bear River High School's UC Reach of 4.6% is below the California median (18.5%). The top 10% of CA schools achieve 53.3% or higher.
Overall, Bear River High School's UC Reach is higher than 3% of California high schools (1105 ranked).
Bear River High School — Enrollment & Outcomes Snapshot
Public · Grass Valley · vs. 10 most similar nearby schools
- ▸On UC Reach, Bear River High School sits in the middle of its similar-school group (ranked #5 of 8): 5% vs. a peer median of 5%.
- ▸Its UC Reach has slipped 11 points since 2018 — worth watching.
- ▸Senior-class enrollment is down 15% (142→121 from 2018 to 2026), trailing the peer-group median of -4%.
- ▸In business terms, this is market-share growth during a market contraction. Nevada County's senior population shrank 41% over the same window — Bear River High School only shrank 15%. So Bear River High School picked up about 26 percentage points of relative share — families chose it over the alternatives even as the overall pool got smaller. That's overperforming the market in a shrinking market.
- ▸Enrollment has been growing (+0.8%/yr); projects to ~669 by 2029.
Enrollment projection
Your school vs. its 10 most similar nearby schools
| School | Type | Size | UC Reach | Enroll. trend |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bear River High School | Public | 653 | 4.6% | -15% |
| Peer-group median | 4.9% | -4% | ||
| Colfax High School | Public | 602 | 26.1% | -4% |
| John Muir Charter | Public | 543 | — | -90% |
| Horizon Charter School | Public | 639 | 4.9% | -3% |
| Placer High School | Public | 1239 | 10.4% | -3% |
| Western Sierra Collegiate Academy | Public | 782 | — | +5% |
| Sky Mountain Charter School | Public | 621 | 3.4% | +16% |
| Golden Sierra Junior Senior High | Public | 384 | — | -27% |
| Lincoln High School | Public | 1117 | 3.9% | -34% |
| Nevada Union High School | Public | 1592 | 4.6% | +4% |
| Forest Charter School | Public | 284 | 5.0% | -9% |
UC Reach = top-6 UC admits ÷ senior class (can exceed 100% when students are admitted to multiple campuses). Enrollment trend = first-to-latest grade-12 change on file. Similar schools matched on proximity, size, type. Methodology →
Admit rate vs. CA peer average, by campus ⓘ
How does this school's admit rate at each UC compare to other CA schools whose applicant pool averages the same GPA?
| Campus | Applicant GPA (avg) | Actual admit rate | CA peer avg | Δ | Verdict |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| UC Santa Barbara | 3.81 | 30.8% | 26.7% | +4.1pp | On target |
| UC Davis | 3.68 | 21.4% | 32.2% | -10.8pp | Under |
UC Outcomes Trend — 2018–2025
Class size from CDE grade 12 enrollment. Campus-level data — applicant/admit totals may count a student at multiple campuses more than once.
Campus Breakdown — 2025
| Campus | Applicants | Admits | Enrollees | Admit Rate | UC Reach | Yield | Avg GPA (App) | Avg GPA (Adm) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| UC Berkeley → Elite | 9 | — | — | — | — | — | 3.63 | — |
| UCLA → Elite | 8 | — | — | — | — | — | 3.78 | — |
| UC San Diego → Selective | 8 | — | — | — | — | — | 3.99 | — |
| UC Santa Barbara → Selective | 13 | 4 | — | 30.8% | 2.6% | — | 3.81 | — |
| UC Irvine → Selective | 7 | — | — | — | — | — | 3.78 | — |
| UC Davis → | 14 | 3 | — | 21.4% | 2.0% | — | 3.68 | — |