Half Moon Bay High School
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Terra Nova High School → Mills High School → Capuchino High School → El Camino High → Design Tech High School → Compare all similar →Enrollment trend & projection
If this trend holds (-2.2%/yr, Total enrollment)
At per-pupil funding of $ / student:
| Horizon | Projected Total enrollment | Change | Funding impact / yr |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 yr (2027) | ~816 | -18 | $0 |
| 3 yr (2029) | ~781 | -53 | $0 |
| 5 yr (2031) | ~747 | -87 | $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 San Mateo County baseline — the demographic tide is moving every CA HS, so a school's gap vs. county is the actionable signal.
Enrollment and retention both close to San Mateo County baseline. The demographic tide is the main mover; no internal break in the system, but no outperformance either.
48 of 919 students who enrolled at Half Moon Bay High School this year didn't maintain continuous enrollment (5.2% 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 9.3 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 — Cabrillo 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: 79.5%
Federal: 6.1%
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 Cabrillo 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).
+7.1 pp above peer median (22.5%) · Ranked #5 of 10 similar schools
18.5%
53.3%
29.6%
Higher than 72% of California high schools (1105 ranked, ≥50 seniors)
Half Moon Bay High School's UC Reach of 29.6% 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 73 pp from where this school sits.
Overall, Half Moon Bay High School's UC Reach is higher than 72% of California high schools (1105 ranked).
Half Moon Bay High School — Enrollment & Outcomes Snapshot
Public · Half Moon Bay · vs. 10 most similar nearby schools
- ▸On UC Reach, Half Moon Bay High School sits in the middle of its similar-school group (ranked #5 of 10): 30% vs. a peer median of 22%.
- ▸Its UC Reach has risen 15 points since 2018.
- ▸Senior-class enrollment is down 6% (252→238 from 2018 to 2026), tracking the peer-group median of -7%.
- ▸At its recent rate (-2.2%/yr), enrollment projects to ~781 by 2029 — about 53 fewer students than today.
Enrollment projection
That's about 53 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Half Moon Bay High School | Public | 834 | 29.6% | -6% |
| Peer-group median | 22.5% | -7% | ||
| Terra Nova High School | Public | 713 | 10.1% | -36% |
| Mills High School | Public | 1120 | 59.3% | -16% |
| Capuchino High School | Public | 1086 | 14.2% | -1% |
| El Camino High | Public | 1051 | 22.5% | -13% |
| Design Tech High School | Public | 563 | 69.6% | +2% |
| Jefferson High School | Public | 1041 | 13.8% | +9% |
| Hillsdale High School | Public | 1517 | 32.1% | +12% |
| South San Francisco Hs | Public | 1224 | 14.5% | -26% |
| Burton (phillip And Sala) Academic High | Public | 1015 | — | +0% |
| San Mateo High School | Public | 1532 | 33.0% | -17% |
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 | 4.15 | 15.2% | 16.1% | -0.9pp | On target |
| UCLA | 4.14 | 12.2% | 10.1% | +2.1pp | On target |
| UC San Diego | 4.07 | 21.4% | 18.6% | +2.8pp | On target |
| UC Santa Barbara | 4.06 | 39.7% | 36.3% | +3.4pp | On target |
| UC Irvine | 4.03 | 17.1% | 27.8% | -10.6pp | Under |
| UC Davis | 4.09 | 48.7% | 33.7% | +15.0pp | Over |
Where Half Moon Bay High School sits vs. all California schools ⓘ
Overall, this school admits its UC applicants in line with what their GPAs predict (26.4% actual vs. 24.2% 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 | 46 | 7 | 4 | 15.2% | 3.0% | 57.1% | 4.15 | 4.31 |
| UCLA → Elite | 41 | 5 | 3 | 12.2% | 2.1% | 60.0% | 4.14 | 4.31 |
| UC San Diego → Selective | 42 | 9 | 3 | 21.4% | 3.9% | 33.3% | 4.07 | 4.23 |
| UC Santa Barbara → Selective | 58 | 23 | 3 | 39.7% | 9.9% | 13.0% | 4.06 | 4.30 |
| UC Irvine → Selective | 35 | 6 | — | 17.1% | 2.6% | — | 4.03 | 4.28 |
| UC Davis → | 39 | 19 | — | 48.7% | 8.2% | — | 4.09 | 4.26 |