Buena High School
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Ventura High School → Rio Mesa High School → Santa Paula High School → Foothill Technology Hs → Hueneme High School → Compare all similar →Enrollment trend & projection
If this trend holds (-3.0%/yr, Total enrollment)
At per-pupil funding of $ / student:
| Horizon | Projected Total enrollment | Change | Funding impact / yr |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 yr (2027) | ~1,443 | -44 | $0 |
| 3 yr (2029) | ~1,359 | -128 | $0 |
| 5 yr (2031) | ~1,280 | -207 | $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 Ventura County baseline — the demographic tide is moving every CA HS, so a school's gap vs. county is the actionable signal.
Enrollment is shrinking 1.9× the county rate (school -19.7% vs. county -10.3%) with stability (89.3%) near the county median. Two problems compounding — the recruitment side is the higher-leverage starting point.
178 of 1,659 students who enrolled at Buena High School this year didn't maintain continuous enrollment (10.7% 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 up 7.8 pp since 2016-17. A rising absenteeism trend often precedes formal departure — worth investigating which subgroups are driving it.
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 — Ventura Unified (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: 40.3%
Federal: 10.3%
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 Ventura Unified 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).
-5.3 pp vs. peer median (12.8%) · Ranked #9 of 9 similar schools
18.5%
12.8%
53.3%
7.5%
Higher than 10% of California high schools (1105 ranked, ≥50 seniors)
Buena High School's UC Reach of 7.5% is below the California median (18.5%). The top 10% of CA schools achieve 53.3% or higher.
Overall, Buena High School's UC Reach is higher than 10% of California high schools (1105 ranked).
Buena High School — Enrollment & Outcomes Snapshot
Public · Ventura · vs. 10 most similar nearby schools
- ▸On UC Reach, Buena High School sits near the bottom of its similar-school group (ranked #9 of 9): 8% vs. a peer median of 13%.
- ▸Its UC Reach has slipped 3 points since 2018 — worth watching.
- ▸Senior-class enrollment is down 20% (441→354 from 2018 to 2026), trailing the peer-group median of -4%.
- ▸At its recent rate (-3.0%/yr), enrollment projects to ~1359 by 2029 — about 128 fewer students than today.
Enrollment projection
That's about 128 fewer students. At per-student funding of $ per student, that's roughly $0 in annual state funding at risk.
Default = California's LCFF base grant for grades 9–12 ($12,423 per ADA) — adjust to your district's actual per-pupil figure. Projection extrapolates the recent annual rate — not a forecast of intent.
Your school vs. its 10 most similar nearby schools
| School | Type | Size | UC Reach | Enroll. trend |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Buena High School | Public | 1487 | 7.5% | -20% |
| Peer-group median | 12.8% | -4% | ||
| Ventura High School | Public | 1927 | 20.8% | -14% |
| Rio Mesa High School | Public | 1836 | 10.1% | -3% |
| Santa Paula High School | Public | 1456 | 19.8% | +2% |
| Foothill Technology Hs | Public | 939 | 20.7% | -8% |
| Hueneme High School | Public | 1862 | 13.0% | -3% |
| Vista Real Charter High School | Public | 1050 | — | -57% |
| Oxnard High School | Public | 2332 | 12.2% | -3% |
| Pacifica High | Public | 2414 | 12.0% | -6% |
| Channel Islands High School | Public | 2238 | 12.7% | +2% |
| Golden Valley Charter | Public | 681 | — | -45% |
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 San Diego | 3.79 | 17.2% | 25.2% | -7.9pp | Under |
| UC Santa Barbara | 3.80 | 37.1% | 26.6% | +10.6pp | Over |
| UC Irvine | 3.77 | 9.7% | 19.2% | -9.5pp | Under |
| UC Davis | 3.85 | 43.8% | 32.1% | +11.6pp | Over |
Where Buena High School sits vs. all California schools ⓘ
Overall, this school admits its UC applicants in line with what their GPAs predict (25.2% actual vs. 25.0% expected).
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 | 20 | — | — | — | — | — | 3.91 | — |
| UCLA → Elite | 27 | — | — | — | — | — | 3.87 | — |
| UC San Diego → Selective | 29 | 5 | — | 17.2% | 1.3% | — | 3.79 | 4.28 |
| UC Santa Barbara → Selective | 35 | 13 | 4 | 37.1% | 3.5% | 30.8% | 3.80 | 4.17 |
| UC Irvine → Selective | 31 | 3 | — | 9.7% | 0.8% | — | 3.77 | — |
| UC Davis → | 16 | 7 | — | 43.8% | 1.9% | — | 3.85 | 4.23 |