Santa Monica High School
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Most similar nearby schools
Venice High School → Palisades Charter High School → Culver City High School → Alexander Hamilton High School → Mira Costa High School → Compare all similar →Enrollment trend & projection
If this trend holds (-1.1%/yr, Total enrollment)
At per-pupil funding of $ / student:
| Horizon | Projected Total enrollment | Change | Funding impact / yr |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 yr (2027) | ~2,560 | -28 | $0 |
| 3 yr (2029) | ~2,504 | -84 | $0 |
| 5 yr (2031) | ~2,450 | -138 | $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 Los Angeles County baseline — the demographic tide is moving every CA HS, so a school's gap vs. county is the actionable signal.
Families who enroll at Santa Monica High School stay (93.9% stability — elite). But enrollment is dropping 1.3× the county rate (school -10.9% vs. county -8.2%). The audit question isn't why students leave — it's why fewer families are choosing to enroll in the first place.
163 of 2,678 students who enrolled at Santa Monica High School this year didn't maintain continuous enrollment (6.1% 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 8.8 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 — Santa Monica-Malibu 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: 83.7%
Federal: 5.6%
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 Santa Monica-Malibu 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).
+12.0 pp above peer median (36.7%) · Ranked #2 of 10 similar schools
18.5%
36.7%
53.3%
48.7%
Higher than 88% of California high schools (1105 ranked, ≥50 seniors)
Santa Monica High School's UC Reach of 48.7% is in the top quartile statewide (median 18.5%; top 25% bar 32.0%) — but it's still below the top-10% bar of 53.3%.
For context, the elite tier (top 1%) clears 102.7% — a gap of 54 pp from where this school sits.
Overall, Santa Monica High School's UC Reach is higher than 88% of California high schools (1105 ranked).
| Campus | Entered | Finished in 4 yrs | Finished in 6 yrs |
|---|---|---|---|
| UC Santa Cruz | 33 | 67% | 73% |
| UC Berkeley | 30 | 83% | 97% |
Santa Monica High School — Enrollment & Outcomes Snapshot
Public · Santa Monica · vs. 10 most similar nearby schools
- ▸On UC Reach, Santa Monica High School sits near the top of its similar-school group (ranked #2 of 10): 49% vs. a peer median of 37%.
- ▸Its UC Reach has risen 7 points since 2018.
- ▸Senior-class enrollment is down 11% (713→635 from 2018 to 2026), trailing the peer-group median of -2%.
- ▸At its recent rate (-1.1%/yr), enrollment projects to ~2504 by 2029 — about 84 fewer students than today.
Enrollment projection
That's about 84 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Santa Monica High School | Public | 2588 | 48.7% | -11% |
| Peer-group median | 36.7% | -2% | ||
| Venice High School | Public | 2334 | 38.0% | +24% |
| Palisades Charter High School | Public | 2393 | 43.6% | -7% |
| Culver City High School | Public | 2009 | 36.7% | +3% |
| Alexander Hamilton High School | Public | 2025 | 30.7% | -21% |
| Mira Costa High School | Public | 2492 | 59.9% | +3% |
| Leuzinger High School | Public | 2014 | 19.0% | +4% |
| University High School Charter | Public | 1300 | — | -21% |
| Hawthorne High School | Public | 1549 | 15.0% | -23% |
| Fairfax High School | Public | 1459 | 28.3% | -28% |
| Foshay Learning Center | Public | 1558 | 42.9% | +6% |
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 | 4.03 | 25.9% | 13.1% | +12.8pp | Over |
| UCLA | 3.97 | 11.2% | 9.1% | +2.1pp | On target |
| UC San Diego | 3.93 | 22.6% | 21.6% | +1.0pp | On target |
| UC Santa Barbara | 3.92 | 26.7% | 29.3% | -2.6pp | On target |
| UC Irvine | 3.87 | 16.0% | 21.9% | -5.9pp | Under |
| UC Davis | 3.87 | 42.8% | 32.2% | +10.6pp | Over |
Where Santa Monica 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. 20.7% 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 | 259 | 67 | 38 | 25.9% | 9.4% | 56.7% | 4.03 | 4.22 |
| UCLA → Elite | 276 | 31 | 15 | 11.2% | 4.4% | 48.4% | 3.97 | 4.21 |
| UC San Diego → Selective | 257 | 58 | 10 | 22.6% | 8.2% | 17.2% | 3.93 | 4.26 |
| UC Santa Barbara → Selective | 296 | 79 | 16 | 26.7% | 11.1% | 20.3% | 3.92 | 4.25 |
| UC Irvine → Selective | 175 | 28 | 5 | 16.0% | 3.9% | 17.9% | 3.87 | 4.16 |
| UC Davis → | 194 | 83 | 12 | 42.8% | 11.7% | 14.5% | 3.87 | 4.12 |