Highlands High School
📄 Shareable scorecard →Compare with peers
Most similar nearby schools
Creative Connections Arts Academy → Community Collaborative Charter → Options For Youth San Juan → Mesa Verde High School → California Innovative Career Academy → Compare all similar →Enrollment trend & projection
If this trend holds (+0.8%/yr, Total enrollment)
At per-pupil funding of $ / student:
| Horizon | Projected Total enrollment | Change | Funding impact / yr |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 yr (2027) | ~797 | +6 | $0 |
| 3 yr (2029) | ~810 | +19 | $0 |
| 5 yr (2031) | ~823 | +32 | $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 Sacramento County baseline — the demographic tide is moving every CA HS, so a school's gap vs. county is the actionable signal.
Enrollment growth is beating Sacramento County (+22.5% vs. +3.0%), but 182 of 842 students didn't maintain continuous enrollment. Why are families leaving once enrolled? Chronic absenteeism is also at 42.1% (up +25.5 pts from 2016-17) — engagement and demand are both signaling decline.
182 of 842 students who enrolled at Highlands High School this year didn't maintain continuous enrollment (21.6% 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 25.5 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 — Twin Rivers 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: 18.8%
Federal: 19.4%
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 Twin Rivers 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).
-2.4 pp vs. peer median (6.7%) · Ranked #5 of 6 similar schools
18.5%
6.7%
53.3%
4.3%
Higher than 3% of California high schools (1105 ranked, ≥50 seniors)
Highlands High School's UC Reach of 4.3% is below the California median (18.5%). The top 10% of CA schools achieve 53.3% or higher.
Overall, Highlands High School's UC Reach is higher than 3% of California high schools (1105 ranked).
Highlands High School — Enrollment & Outcomes Snapshot
Public · North Highlands · vs. 10 most similar nearby schools
- ▸On UC Reach, Highlands High School sits near the bottom of its similar-school group (ranked #5 of 6): 4% vs. a peer median of 7%.
- ▸Its UC Reach has slipped 2 points since 2018 — worth watching.
- ▸Senior-class enrollment is up 22% (151→185 from 2018 to 2026), outpacing the peer-group median of +1%.
- ▸Enrollment has been growing (+0.8%/yr); projects to ~810 by 2029.
Enrollment projection
Your school vs. its 10 most similar nearby schools
| School | Type | Size | UC Reach | Enroll. trend |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Highlands High School | Public | 791 | 4.3% | +22% |
| Peer-group median | 6.7% | +1% | ||
| Creative Connections Arts Academy | Public | 786 | — | +64% |
| Community Collaborative Charter | Public | 810 | — | -66% |
| Options For Youth San Juan | Public | 742 | — | -24% |
| Mesa Verde High School | Public | 847 | 6.7% | -1% |
| California Innovative Career Academy | Public | 800 | — | +36% |
| Western Sierra Collegiate Academy | Public | 782 | — | +5% |
| Encina High School | Public | 879 | 2.9% | +23% |
| Leroy Greene Academy | Public | 753 | 16.5% | -4% |
| San Juan High School | Public | 523 | 6.4% | -8% |
| Center High School | Public | 1257 | 8.8% | +3% |
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 Davis | 3.78 | 72.7% | 32.0% | +40.7pp | Over |
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 | 8 | — | — | — | — | — | 3.80 | — |
| UCLA → Elite | 5 | — | — | — | — | — | 3.78 | — |
| UC Irvine → Selective | 6 | — | — | — | — | — | 3.78 | — |
| UC Davis → | 11 | 8 | 4 | 72.7% | 4.3% | 50.0% | 3.78 | 3.92 |