Pescadero High School
Pescadero · San Mateo County · La Honda-Pescadero Unified · Public
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Most similar nearby schools
Alta Vista High → Oxford Day Academy → Slvusd Charter School → Costanoa Continuation High → New Valley Continuation High → Compare all similar →📋 At a glance
- 📚 1 AP courses offered — Moderate
- ✅ Dual-enrollment program (college credit while in HS)
- 🎓 AP rigor: Bottom 33% of US high schools
- 🎓 4-yr grad rate: 90% (Bottom 49% of US high schools by 4-yr grad rate)
Composed from federal CRDC offerings, EDFacts ACGR, and other public data. Full breakdowns below.
How Pescadero High School compares for families
What families should know about Pescadero High School.
- ▸ Locally📘 Top 5% in California on ELA proficiency — plus 1 more top-rank.
- ▸ vs Similar SchoolsThe closest comparables nearby: Alta Vista High, Oxford Day Academy, Slvusd Charter School and 2 more. See the sidebar to compare side-by-side.
🎓 Academic rigor
AP + advanced-course offerings
Moderate — some AP / advanced course access
Bottom 33% of US high schools
Source: federal Civil Rights Data Collection (CRDC 2020-21). CRDC reports what's offered + enrolled — it doesn't collect AP exam pass rates (College Board owns that data and doesn't release it school-level).
SAT / ACT participation
CRDC federal data · 2020-21Source: federal Civil Rights Data Collection (CRDC 2020-21). Volume — not score — is what's reported here. A higher count means more students at this school are entering the college admissions pipeline. Note: 2020-21 was COVID-disrupted; some districts (especially those that stayed remote longer) report unusually low or zero takers.
🎓 4-year graduation rate · federal EDFacts
What % of students graduate on time?
Bottom 49% of US high schools by 4-yr grad rate
Source: federal EDFacts ACGR (Adjusted Cohort Graduation Rate), 2019 vintage via Urban Institute. EDFacts publishes a range (low-high) to preserve privacy on small cohorts; we display the midpoint.
🏛️ Federal Title I context
Mixed-income school
Below Title I eligibility threshold (FRPL < 35%)
25-34% of students qualify for free/reduced lunch. Below the federal Title I threshold but a meaningful share of the population is income-eligible for free lunch.
Source: NCES Common Core of Data, free/reduced-price lunch eligibility. The actual Title I designation is a district decision and may differ from eligibility — but the federal eligibility math is what we show here. We don't claim to assert whether the district formally chose to enroll this school in Title I.
GPA figures reflect 2023 — UC has not yet released applicant/admit GPA for 2024.
UC Outcomes Trend — 2018–2023
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 — 2024
| Campus | Applicants | Admits | Enrollees | Admit Rate | UC Reach | Yield | Avg GPA (App) '23 | Avg GPA (Adm) '23 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| UC Berkeley → Elite | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| UCLA → Elite | — | — | — | — | — | — | 3.57 | — |
| UC San Diego → Selective | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| UC Santa Barbara → Selective | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| UC Irvine → Selective | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| UC Davis → | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
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.
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 25.7 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).
Enrollment trend & projection
If this trend holds (-2.8%/yr, Total enrollment)
At per-pupil funding of $ / student:
| Horizon | Projected Total enrollment | Change | Funding impact / yr |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 yr (2027) | ~72 | -2 | $0 |
| 3 yr (2029) | ~68 | -6 | $0 |
| 5 yr (2031) | ~64 | -10 | $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.
Pescadero High School — Enrollment & Outcomes Snapshot
Public · Pescadero · vs. 10 most similar nearby schools
- ▸Pescadero High School's most recent UC Reach is 14% (share of seniors admitted to a top-6 UC).
- ▸Senior-class enrollment is down 15% (26→22 from 2018 to 2026), tracking the peer-group median of -14%.
- ▸At its recent rate (-2.8%/yr), enrollment projects to ~68 by 2029 — about 6 fewer students than today.
Enrollment projection
That's about 6 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pescadero High School | Public | 74 | 14.3% | -15% |
| Peer-group median | — | -14% | ||
| Alta Vista High | Public | 74 | — | -33% |
| Oxford Day Academy | Public | 82 | — | +60% |
| Slvusd Charter School | Public | 110 | — | +76% |
| Costanoa Continuation High | Public | 67 | — | +0% |
| New Valley Continuation High | Public | 117 | — | -10% |
| Pilarcitos Alternative High (continuation) | Public | 34 | — | +0% |
| Peninsula High (continuation) | Public | 119 | — | -19% |
| Redwood High | Public | 157 | — | -32% |
| Boynton High School | Public | 132 | — | -38% |
| Alternative Family Education | Public | 123 | — | -62% |
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 →
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.
Pescadero High School's enrollment is shrinking 2.9× the county rate (school -15.4% vs. county -5.3%). Stability of 95.1% means every family you keep is one fewer; the leverage is at recruitment, not retention. This is the case the high stability number alone would hide. Chronic absenteeism is also at 40.7% (up +25.7 pts from 2016-17) — engagement and demand are both signaling decline.
4 of 81 students who enrolled at Pescadero High School this year didn't maintain continuous enrollment (4.9% 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.
District financial profile — La Honda-Pescadero 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: 76.8%
Federal: 7.8%
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 La Honda-Pescadero 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).