Kern Valley High School
📄 Shareable scorecard →Compare with peers
Most similar nearby schools
Desert Junior-Senior High → Harmony Magnet Academy → Kern Workforce 2000 Academy → Vista West Continuation High → California City High School → Compare all similar →Enrollment trend & projection
If this trend holds (+2.0%/yr, Total enrollment)
At per-pupil funding of $ / student:
| Horizon | Projected Total enrollment | Change | Funding impact / yr |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 yr (2027) | ~519 | +10 | $0 |
| 3 yr (2029) | ~540 | +31 | $0 |
| 5 yr (2031) | ~562 | +53 | $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 Kern County baseline — the demographic tide is moving every CA HS, so a school's gap vs. county is the actionable signal.
On the surface Kern Valley High School looks fine — enrollment is +31.2% vs. Kern County +12.7%, and 87.9% of students stay through year-end. But <strong>chronic absenteeism is at 32.6%, up +8.9 pts since 2016-17 (county median 19.2%). Disengagement leads departure — families pull back from the day-to-day before they formally leave. The demand signal usually follows within 2–3 years.
66 of 544 students who enrolled at Kern Valley High School this year didn't maintain continuous enrollment (12.1% 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 8.9 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 — Kern 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: 25.3%
Federal: 12.7%
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 Kern 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).
Kern Valley High School — Enrollment & Outcomes Snapshot
Public · Lake Isabella · vs. 10 most similar nearby schools
- ▸Senior-class enrollment is up 31% (93→122 from 2018 to 2026), outpacing the peer-group median of +4%.
- ▸Enrollment has been growing (+2.0%/yr); projects to ~540 by 2029.
Enrollment projection
Your school vs. its 10 most similar nearby schools
| School | Type | Size | UC Reach | Enroll. trend |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Kern Valley High School | Public | 509 | — | +31% |
| Peer-group median | 10.2% | +4% | ||
| Desert Junior-Senior High | Public | 507 | — | -12% |
| Harmony Magnet Academy | Public | 498 | 27.0% | -12% |
| Kern Workforce 2000 Academy | Public | 483 | — | +23% |
| Vista West Continuation High | Public | 428 | — | +47% |
| California City High School | Public | 613 | 10.2% | +6% |
| Mojave Jr./Sr. High | Public | 368 | — | +27% |
| Butterfield Charter | Public | 365 | — | -0% |
| Valley Oaks Charter School | Public | 300 | — | +1% |
| Strathmore High School | Public | 292 | 7.0% | +10% |
| Tierra Del Sol Continuation High | Public | 291 | — | -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 →
GPA figures reflect 2020 — UC has not yet released applicant/admit GPA for 2024.
Campus Breakdown — 2024
| Campus | Applicants | Admits | Enrollees | Admit Rate | UC Reach | Yield | Avg GPA (App) '20 | Avg GPA (Adm) '20 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| UC Berkeley → Elite | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| UCLA → Elite | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| UC San Diego → Selective | — | — | — | — | — | — | 3.90 | — |
| UC Santa Barbara → Selective | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |