El Modena High School
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Most similar nearby schools
Orange High School → Villa Park High School → Foothill High → Orange County School of the Arts → Tustin High School → Compare all similar →Enrollment trend & projection
If this trend holds (-2.4%/yr, Total enrollment)
At per-pupil funding of $ / student:
| Horizon | Projected Total enrollment | Change | Funding impact / yr |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 yr (2027) | ~1,714 | -42 | $0 |
| 3 yr (2029) | ~1,632 | -124 | $0 |
| 5 yr (2031) | ~1,555 | -201 | $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 Orange County baseline — the demographic tide is moving every CA HS, so a school's gap vs. county is the actionable signal.
Enrollment is shrinking faster than Orange County (school -9.1% vs. county -7.1%) with stability (92.2%) near the county median. Two problems compounding — the recruitment side is the higher-leverage starting point.
146 of 1,883 students who enrolled at El Modena High School this year didn't maintain continuous enrollment (7.8% 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 7.6 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 — Orange 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: 54.3%
Federal: 10.5%
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 Orange 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).
-9.0 pp vs. peer median (20.6%) · Ranked #9 of 11 similar schools
18.5%
53.3%
11.6%
Higher than 26% of California high schools (1105 ranked, ≥50 seniors)
El Modena High School's UC Reach of 11.6% is below the California median (18.5%). The top 10% of CA schools achieve 53.3% or higher.
But in Orange County, where the local median is 25.0% and the top-10% bar is 71.2%, this score is mid-pack rather than exceptional — typical of its market rather than a standout.
Overall, El Modena High School's UC Reach is higher than 26% of California high schools (1105 ranked).
El Modena High School — Enrollment & Outcomes Snapshot
Public · Orange · vs. 10 most similar nearby schools
- ▸On UC Reach, El Modena High School sits near the bottom of its similar-school group (ranked #9 of 11): 12% vs. a peer median of 21%.
- ▸Its UC Reach has slipped 2 points since 2018 — worth watching.
- ▸Senior-class enrollment is down 9% (515→468 from 2018 to 2026), tracking the peer-group median of -10%.
- ▸At its recent rate (-2.4%/yr), enrollment projects to ~1632 by 2029 — about 124 fewer students than today.
Enrollment projection
That's about 124 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| El Modena High School | Public | 1756 | 11.6% | -9% |
| Peer-group median | 20.6% | -10% | ||
| Orange High School | Public | 1710 | 6.6% | +8% |
| Villa Park High School | Public | 2049 | 20.6% | -14% |
| Foothill High | Public | 2050 | 24.6% | +3% |
| Orange County School of the Arts | Public | 1915 | 96.2% | +46% |
| Tustin High School | Public | 1520 | 16.2% | -29% |
| Valley High | Public | 1737 | 14.8% | +4% |
| Irvine High School | Public | 1903 | 43.0% | -14% |
| Yorba Linda High School | Public | 1706 | 38.6% | -7% |
| Santiago High | Public | 1557 | 20.6% | -16% |
| Katella High School | Public | 2168 | 11.3% | -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 →
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 Berkeley | 3.96 | 10.3% | 12.2% | -1.8pp | On target |
| UCLA | 3.94 | 6.5% | 9.0% | -2.5pp | On target |
| UC San Diego | 3.92 | 21.4% | 21.8% | -0.4pp | On target |
| UC Santa Barbara | 3.90 | 55.6% | 28.7% | +26.9pp | Over |
| UC Irvine | 3.85 | 8.8% | 21.2% | -12.4pp | Under |
| UC Davis | 3.85 | 46.2% | 32.1% | +14.0pp | Over |
Where El Modena High School sits vs. all California schools ⓘ
Overall, this school admits its UC applicants in line with what their GPAs predict (20.2% actual vs. 20.0% 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 | 29 | 3 | — | 10.3% | 0.7% | — | 3.96 | — |
| UCLA → Elite | 46 | 3 | — | 6.5% | 0.7% | — | 3.94 | — |
| UC San Diego → Selective | 56 | 12 | 5 | 21.4% | 2.7% | 41.7% | 3.92 | 4.22 |
| UC Santa Barbara → Selective | 27 | 15 | 7 | 55.6% | 3.4% | 46.7% | 3.90 | 4.09 |
| UC Irvine → Selective | 68 | 6 | 3 | 8.8% | 1.4% | 50.0% | 3.85 | 4.16 |
| UC Davis → | 26 | 12 | 3 | 46.2% | 2.7% | 25.0% | 3.85 | 4.06 |