Saugus High School
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Most similar nearby schools
Valencia High → Golden Valley High → Canyon High → William S Hart High School → West Ranch High School → Compare all similar →Enrollment trend & projection
If this trend holds (-0.6%/yr, Total enrollment)
At per-pupil funding of $ / student:
| Horizon | Projected Total enrollment | Change | Funding impact / yr |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 yr (2027) | ~2,315 | -14 | $0 |
| 3 yr (2029) | ~2,288 | -41 | $0 |
| 5 yr (2031) | ~2,262 | -67 | $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.
Saugus High School is shrinking (-0.2%) but Los Angeles County is shrinking faster (-8.2%), so Saugus High School is winning roughly 8.0 pp of relative market share. Combined with 94.0% stability (county median 87.3%), this reflects a school that families actively chose during a market contraction. Replicable model — worth documenting what's working.
143 of 2,393 students who enrolled at Saugus High School this year didn't maintain continuous enrollment (6.0% 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 7.2 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 — William S. Hart 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: 25.6%
Federal: 5.5%
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 William S. Hart 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).
On the peer median (14.5%) · Ranked #5 of 10 similar schools
18.5%
53.3%
15.3%
Higher than 42% of California high schools (1105 ranked, ≥50 seniors)
Saugus High School's UC Reach of 15.3% is below the California median (18.5%). The top 10% of CA schools achieve 53.3% or higher.
Overall, Saugus High School's UC Reach is higher than 42% of California high schools (1105 ranked).
Saugus High School — Enrollment & Outcomes Snapshot
Public · Saugus · vs. 10 most similar nearby schools
- ▸On UC Reach, Saugus High School sits in the middle of its similar-school group (ranked #5 of 10): 15% vs. a peer median of 14%.
- ▸Its UC Reach has risen 2 points since 2018.
- ▸Senior-class enrollment is down 0% (570→569 from 2018 to 2026), outpacing the peer-group median of -8%.
- ▸In business terms, this is market-share growth during a market contraction. Los Angeles County's senior population shrank 8% over the same window — Saugus High School only shrank 0%. So Saugus High School picked up about 8 percentage points of relative share — families chose it over the alternatives even as the overall pool got smaller. That's overperforming the market in a shrinking market.
- ▸At its recent rate (-0.6%/yr), enrollment projects to ~2288 by 2029 — about 41 fewer students than today.
Enrollment projection
That's about 41 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Saugus High School | Public | 2329 | 15.3% | -0% |
| Peer-group median | 14.5% | -8% | ||
| Valencia High | Public | 2192 | 25.0% | -32% |
| Golden Valley High | Public | 1889 | 13.5% | +2% |
| Canyon High | Public | 1846 | 7.6% | -8% |
| William S Hart High School | Public | 1841 | 14.5% | -13% |
| West Ranch High School | Public | 1807 | 52.3% | -24% |
| John F. Kennedy High | Public | 2167 | 22.5% | +12% |
| Grover Cleveland Charter High | Public | 2633 | — | +0% |
| Simi Valley High School | Public | 1947 | 13.4% | -9% |
| John H Francis Polytechnic Hs | Public | 1965 | 18.0% | -28% |
| James Monroe High School | Public | 1732 | 14.4% | +1% |
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 | 4.04 | 13.2% | 13.3% | -0.1pp | On target |
| UCLA | 3.98 | 8.2% | 9.2% | -1.0pp | On target |
| UC San Diego | 3.96 | 22.7% | 20.9% | +1.8pp | On target |
| UC Santa Barbara | 3.96 | 31.9% | 30.9% | +1.1pp | On target |
| UC Irvine | 3.92 | 11.3% | 23.6% | -12.3pp | Under |
| UC Davis | 3.97 | 33.3% | 32.7% | +0.7pp | On target |
Where Saugus High School sits vs. all California schools ⓘ
Overall, this school admits its UC applicants in line with what their GPAs predict (19.5% actual vs. 21.2% 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 | 53 | 7 | 5 | 13.2% | 1.3% | 71.4% | 4.04 | 4.26 |
| UCLA → Elite | 85 | 7 | 5 | 8.2% | 1.3% | 71.4% | 3.98 | 4.28 |
| UC San Diego → Selective | 88 | 20 | 6 | 22.7% | 3.7% | 30.0% | 3.96 | 4.24 |
| UC Santa Barbara → Selective | 72 | 23 | 9 | 31.9% | 4.3% | 39.1% | 3.96 | 4.27 |
| UC Irvine → Selective | 71 | 8 | — | 11.3% | 1.5% | — | 3.92 | 4.30 |
| UC Davis → | 51 | 17 | — | 33.3% | 3.2% | — | 3.97 | 4.25 |