Del Norte High

· Del Norte County · Del Norte County Unified · Public

Public Del Norte County 🏛 Del Norte County Unified → ~219 seniors CDS 0861820…
📄 Shareable scorecard →

📋 At a glance

Programs & features
  • 📚 7 AP courses offered — Elite
  • ✅ Dual-enrollment program (college credit while in HS)
  • ✅ Gifted & talented program
  • 🔢 2 calculus classes · 6 physics · 11 chemistry
Academic signals
  • 🎓 AP rigor: 70th percentile nationally
  • 🎓 4-yr grad rate: 92% (60th percentile nationally)

Composed from federal CRDC offerings, EDFacts ACGR, and other public data. Full breakdowns below.

💡

How Del Norte High compares for families

Stronger-than-average college-prep profile.

  • StatewideAP rigor at the 70th percentile nationally with 7 AP courses.
  • vs Similar SchoolsThe closest comparables nearby: Arcata High School, Fortuna Union High School, University Preparatory School and 2 more. See the sidebar to compare side-by-side.

🎓 Academic rigor

AP + advanced-course offerings

Elite — exceptional AP + advanced course breadth

70th percentile nationally

50th 90th ↑ this school
Less rigorMore rigorMost rigor
AP courses offered
7
Math ✓
Advanced math classes
5
2 calculus · 3 advanced
Lab science classes
17
6 physics · 11 chemistry
Other rigor signals
✅ Dual-enrollment program
✅ Gifted/talented 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
SAT/ACT test-takers
0
11th-12th graders who took 1+ college admissions test
Test-taking intensity
0.0
takers per 100 students in grades 9-12

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?

60th percentile nationally

50th 90th
4-year graduation rate
92%
Range: 90–94%
4-year cohort size
184
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.

🏛️ Federal Title I context

Title I Schoolwide eligible

≥40% FRPL — qualifies for Title I Schoolwide program

58.7%
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)

40-74% of students qualify for free/reduced lunch. The district can use Title I funds across the whole school under federal Schoolwide Program rules.

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.

University of California outcomes · Class of 2025
UC Reach
N/A
5-year trend
2020 · 5.2% 2024 · 2.7%
UC Application Reach
3.7%
8 applications
In context: CA median 74.9% · Top 10% statewide ≥ 241.0% · higher than 0% of CA HS.
UC Admit Rate
N/A
None / 8 applications
UC Yield Rate
N/A
None enrolled of None admitted
Yield vs. Enrollment Reach: Yield answers "of UC admits, what % chose UC?" — denominator is just the admits. A small admitted cohort can post a low yield even when the school sends a healthy share of its class to UC.
UC Enrollment Reach
N/A
None enrollees / 219 seniors
Enrollment Reach vs. Yield: Reach answers "of the whole senior class, what % ended up at UC?" — denominator is everyone. High Yield with low Enrollment Reach is common at elite privates: most admits matriculate, but the school sends most of its class to non-UC selective colleges.
Student-Counselor Ratio
304:1
3.0 FTE counselors · 911 students
In context: CA median 338:1 · 34 fewer students per counselor · ASCA target 250:1.
A-G Completion
23%
42 of 183 graduates · 2024-25 cohort
In context: CA median 55.9% · -32.9 pp vs. median.
Selective UC Reach (UCSD, UCSB, UCI, UCD)
N/A
Elite UC Reach (UCB + UCLA)
N/A
Senior Class Size
219
CDE grade 12 (exact)
Total School Enrollment
918
All grades · CDE Census Day
Economic Connectedness
0.67
16th percentile in CA · cross‑class friendships
Avg. Applicant GPA · top-6 UCs
3.39

UC Outcomes Trend — 2018–2025

UC Admit Rate %
UC Reach % (where available)
UC Admits (count, right axis)

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 Davis → 8 3.39
= UCOP-suppressed (count below 3 students, hidden for privacy — actual value is 0, 1, or 2, not necessarily zero). Campus-level totals may count one student admitted to multiple UC campuses more than once; Admit Volume metrics are not the same as UC Reach, which requires unique-student counts. See methodology →

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.

ELA — met or exceeded
n = 166
50.6%
incl. 16.9% exceeded
+12.4 pts above Del Norte County median (38.2%) · CA median 54.3% · Top 10% statewide ≥ 79.3%
Math — met or exceeded
n = 165
20.0%
incl. 6.1% exceeded
+8.6 pts above Del Norte County median (11.4%) · CA median 21.1% · Top 10% statewide ≥ 53.6%

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

White 45% -1.0
Hispanic / Latino 27%
American Indian 13%
Two or more 10% +3.3
Asian 4%

Program subgroups

Students w/ disabilities 55% -4.4
Socioeconomically disadv. 15%
English learners 4% -1.7
Homeless 1% -3.1

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.

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.

Chronic absent
20.8%
195 of 936 students

Absenteeism is down 5.8 pp since 2016-17. Engagement improving — a positive trajectory worth understanding and reinforcing.

Del Norte County median
20.8% · school is worse than 0% of 1 HS
Statewide median
22.9%

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).

Enrollment trend & projection

Total enrollment (9–12)
915 (2018)911 (2026)
-0.4%
Grade 12 (graduating class)
217 (2018)196 (2026)
-9.7%

If this trend holds (-0.1%/yr, Total enrollment)

At per-pupil funding of $ / student:

Horizon Projected Total enrollment Change Funding impact / yr
1 yr (2027) ~911 +0 $0
3 yr (2029) ~910 -1 $0
5 yr (2031) ~909 -2 $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.

Del Norte High — Enrollment & Outcomes Snapshot

Public · vs. 10 most similar nearby schools

  • On UC Reach, Del Norte High sits near the bottom of its similar-school group (ranked #10 of 10): 3% vs. a peer median of 6%.
  • Its UC Reach has slipped 4 points since 2018 — worth watching.
  • Senior-class enrollment is down 10% (217→196 from 2018 to 2026), trailing the peer-group median of +22%.
  • At its recent rate (-0.1%/yr), enrollment projects to ~910 by 2029 — about 1 fewer students than today.

Enrollment projection

911 students (2026)
~910 projected (2029)
at -0.1%/yr

That's about 1 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
Del Norte High Public 911 2.7% -10%
Peer-group median 6.2% +22%
Arcata High School Public 972 22.0% +36%
Fortuna Union High School Public 832 6.2% +5%
University Preparatory School Public 1004 34.7% +24%
Enterprise High School Public 1123 4.8% +23%
Eureka Senior High School Public 1159 3.8% -6%
Eureka Senior High Public 1159 3.8% +25%
Redding School Of The Arts Public 664 +29%
Shasta High School Public 1267 8.2% +13%
Central Valley High Public 598 2.9% +10%
Yreka High School Public 588 6.5% +20%

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 →

Enrollment stability & demand — 2024-25

Two complementary signals: retention (do students stay once enrolled?) and demand (are families choosing the school?). Read against the Del Norte County baseline — the demographic tide is moving every CA HS, so a school's gap vs. county is the actionable signal.

Action needed
Strong inside, weak at the gate.

Families who enroll at Del Norte High stay (82.2% stability — elite). But enrollment is dropping 1.5× the county rate (school -9.7% vs. county -6.3%). The audit question isn't why students leave — it's why fewer families are choosing to enroll in the first place.

-9.7%  school enrollment (2018–2026)
-6.3%  Del Norte County baseline
-3.4pp  gap vs. county
82.2%  retention (county median 60.5%)
Enrollment — indexed to 100 at 2018
Stability rate
82.2%
806 of 981 students

175 of 981 students who enrolled at Del Norte High this year didn't maintain continuous enrollment (17.8% non-stability). Mid-year transfers, dropouts, and other exits are all counted.

Del Norte County median
60.5% · school is in the 100th percentile of 2 HS
Statewide median
87.2% · in the 34th percentile of 1,688 HS

Stability by student group

Socio. disadvantaged (614) 78.2%
White (441) 85.5%
Hispanic / Latino (263) 82.9%
Students w/ disabilities (154) 76.6%
American Indian / AN (131) 71.0%
Two or more races (98) 74.5%

Nearest peer high schools

Arcata High School 89.3% Fortuna Union High School 83.7% University Preparatory School 96.5% Enterprise High School 85.5%

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.

District financial profile — Del Norte County 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.

Total revenue
$64.0M
+31.5% since FY2017
Per-pupil revenue
$17,952
3,564 students enrolled
Revenue mix
State: 59.4%
Local: 23.9%
Federal: 16.8%
Instruction share
60.2%
of current spending · $8,282/pupil
Long-term debt
$23.8M
+27.8% since FY2017
Total revenue by year ($M)
Total expenditure by year ($M)

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 Del Norte County 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).

What This Means

A relatively small share of the senior class is entering the UC application pipeline. This may signal limited A-G completion, UC awareness gaps, or counseling capacity constraints. Broadening access is the highest-leverage opportunity for this school.
Note: admit counts used here are campus-level totals. A student admitted to both UCLA and UCSD is counted twice. When UCOP unique-student data becomes available it will be loaded automatically and the labels will update.
Compare with other schools → See Del Norte County rankings →

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