Katella High School
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Valencia High School → Garden Grove High School → Villa Park High School → Santa Ana High School → El Dorado High School → Compare all similar →Enrollment trend & projection
If this trend holds (-2.9%/yr, Total enrollment)
At per-pupil funding of $ / student:
| Horizon | Projected Total enrollment | Change | Funding impact / yr |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 yr (2027) | ~2,105 | -63 | $0 |
| 3 yr (2029) | ~1,983 | -185 | $0 |
| 5 yr (2031) | ~1,869 | -299 | $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 -20.2% vs. county -7.1% AND stability (88.8%) below the county median. Recruitment and retention both under pressure — likely a foundational rather than tactical problem. Chronic absenteeism is also at 31.7% (up +20.4 pts from 2016-17) — engagement and demand are both signaling decline.
273 of 2,443 students who enrolled at Katella High School this year didn't maintain continuous enrollment (11.2% 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 20.4 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 — Anaheim 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: 29.4%
Federal: 12.8%
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 Anaheim 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).
-13.8 pp vs. peer median (25.1%) · Ranked #11 of 11 similar schools
18.5%
25.1%
53.3%
11.3%
Higher than 24% of California high schools (1105 ranked, ≥50 seniors)
Katella High School's UC Reach of 11.3% 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, Katella High School's UC Reach is higher than 24% of California high schools (1105 ranked).
Katella High School — Enrollment & Outcomes Snapshot
Public · Anaheim · vs. 10 most similar nearby schools
- ▸On UC Reach, Katella High School sits near the bottom of its similar-school group (ranked #11 of 11): 11% vs. a peer median of 25%.
- ▸Its UC Reach has slipped 2 points since 2018 — worth watching.
- ▸Senior-class enrollment is down 20% (660→527 from 2018 to 2026), trailing the peer-group median of -9%.
- ▸At its recent rate (-2.9%/yr), enrollment projects to ~1983 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Katella High School | Public | 2168 | 11.3% | -20% |
| Peer-group median | 25.1% | -9% | ||
| Valencia High School | Public | 2242 | 27.8% | -6% |
| Garden Grove High School | Public | 2103 | 33.6% | -19% |
| Villa Park High School | Public | 2049 | 20.6% | -14% |
| Santa Ana High School | Public | 2196 | 13.5% | -4% |
| El Dorado High School | Public | 2054 | 22.4% | +12% |
| Anaheim High School | Public | 2604 | 18.2% | -21% |
| Troy High School | Public | 2422 | 71.6% | -16% |
| Canyon High School | Public | 2241 | 28.8% | -1% |
| Fullerton Union High School | Public | 1921 | 20.9% | -13% |
| Sunny Hills High School | Public | 2344 | 53.3% | +4% |
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| UCLA | 3.77 | 8.2% | 9.1% | -0.9pp | On target |
| UC San Diego | 3.73 | 33.3% | 27.1% | +6.3pp | Over |
| UC Santa Barbara | 3.76 | 53.1% | 26.4% | +26.7pp | Over |
| UC Irvine | 3.73 | 17.7% | 18.3% | -0.6pp | On target |
| UC Davis | 3.83 | 31.8% | 32.1% | -0.2pp | On target |
Where Katella High School sits vs. all California schools ⓘ
Overall, this school admits its UC applicants in line with what their GPAs predict (23.7% actual vs. 19.8% 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 | 48 | — | — | — | — | — | 3.87 | — |
| UCLA → Elite | 73 | 6 | — | 8.2% | 1.0% | — | 3.77 | 4.26 |
| UC San Diego → Selective | 60 | 20 | 7 | 33.3% | 3.4% | 35.0% | 3.73 | 4.24 |
| UC Santa Barbara → Selective | 32 | 17 | 3 | 53.1% | 2.9% | 17.6% | 3.76 | 4.06 |
| UC Irvine → Selective | 96 | 17 | 6 | 17.7% | 2.9% | 35.3% | 3.73 | 4.12 |
| UC Davis → | 22 | 7 | — | 31.8% | 1.2% | — | 3.83 | 4.13 |