Fountain Valley High School
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Most similar nearby schools
Huntington Beach High School → Westminster High School → Segerstrom High School → Los Alamitos High School → Edison High → Compare all similar →Enrollment trend & projection
If this trend holds (-2.1%/yr, Total enrollment)
At per-pupil funding of $ / student:
| Horizon | Projected Total enrollment | Change | Funding impact / yr |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 yr (2027) | ~2,996 | -63 | $0 |
| 3 yr (2029) | ~2,874 | -185 | $0 |
| 5 yr (2031) | ~2,757 | -302 | $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.
Families who enroll at Fountain Valley High School stay (95.4% stability — elite). But enrollment is dropping 2.2× the county rate (school -15.4% vs. county -7.1%). The audit question isn't why students leave — it's why fewer families are choosing to enroll in the first place.
148 of 3,242 students who enrolled at Fountain Valley High School this year didn't maintain continuous enrollment (4.6% 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 up 4.4 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 — Huntington Beach 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: 57.3%
Federal: 8.6%
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 Huntington Beach 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).
+4.2 pp above peer median (24.1%) · Ranked #5 of 11 similar schools
18.5%
24.1%
53.3%
28.3%
Higher than 70% of California high schools (1105 ranked, ≥50 seniors)
Fountain Valley High School's UC Reach of 28.3% is above the California median (18.5%). The top 10% of CA schools achieve 53.3% or higher.
For context, the elite tier (top 1%) clears 102.7% — a gap of 74 pp from where this school sits.
Overall, Fountain Valley High School's UC Reach is higher than 70% of California high schools (1105 ranked).
| Campus | Entered | Finished in 4 yrs | Finished in 6 yrs |
|---|---|---|---|
| UC Irvine | 54 | 87% | 93% |
| UC Riverside | 24 | 83% | 88% |
Fountain Valley High School — Enrollment & Outcomes Snapshot
Public · Fountain Valley · vs. 10 most similar nearby schools
- ▸On UC Reach, Fountain Valley High School sits in the middle of its similar-school group (ranked #5 of 11): 28% vs. a peer median of 24%.
- ▸Its UC Reach has slipped 2 points since 2018 — worth watching.
- ▸Senior-class enrollment is down 15% (941→796 from 2018 to 2026), trailing the peer-group median of -6%.
- ▸At its recent rate (-2.1%/yr), enrollment projects to ~2874 by 2029 — about 185 fewer students than today.
Enrollment projection
That's about 185 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fountain Valley High School | Public | 3059 | 28.3% | -15% |
| Peer-group median | 24.1% | -6% | ||
| Huntington Beach High School | Public | 2510 | 26.8% | -6% |
| Westminster High School | Public | 2436 | 21.1% | -11% |
| Segerstrom High School | Public | 2209 | 20.0% | -5% |
| Los Alamitos High School | Public | 2809 | 32.8% | -14% |
| Edison High | Public | 2098 | 21.3% | -3% |
| La Quinta High | Public | 1989 | 40.2% | -7% |
| Anaheim High School | Public | 2604 | 18.2% | -21% |
| Cypress High School | Public | 2548 | 30.5% | -2% |
| Santa Ana High School | Public | 2196 | 13.5% | -4% |
| Garden Grove High School | Public | 2103 | 33.6% | -19% |
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 | 4.00 | 10.3% | 12.7% | -2.4pp | On target |
| UCLA | 3.95 | 8.1% | 9.1% | -0.9pp | On target |
| UC San Diego | 3.90 | 17.7% | 22.4% | -4.7pp | On target |
| UC Santa Barbara | 3.85 | 26.0% | 27.2% | -1.2pp | On target |
| UC Irvine | 3.89 | 25.9% | 22.5% | +3.4pp | On target |
| UC Davis | 3.92 | 42.4% | 32.4% | +10.0pp | Over |
Where Fountain Valley High School sits vs. all California schools ⓘ
Overall, this school admits its UC applicants in line with what their GPAs predict (19.8% actual vs. 19.9% 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 | 146 | 15 | 5 | 10.3% | 1.9% | 33.3% | 4.00 | 4.24 |
| UCLA → Elite | 234 | 19 | 15 | 8.1% | 2.4% | 78.9% | 3.95 | 4.24 |
| UC San Diego → Selective | 249 | 44 | 12 | 17.7% | 5.5% | 27.3% | 3.90 | 4.27 |
| UC Santa Barbara → Selective | 146 | 38 | 5 | 26.0% | 4.7% | 13.2% | 3.85 | 4.27 |
| UC Irvine → Selective | 278 | 72 | 36 | 25.9% | 9.0% | 50.0% | 3.89 | 4.23 |
| UC Davis → | 92 | 39 | 9 | 42.4% | 4.9% | 23.1% | 3.92 | 4.22 |