South High School
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Most similar nearby schools
Del Oro High → Golden Valley High School → West High School → Mira Monte High School → East Bakersfield High School → Compare all similar →Enrollment trend & projection
If this trend holds (-0.0%/yr, Total enrollment)
At per-pupil funding of $ / student:
| Horizon | Projected Total enrollment | Change | Funding impact / yr |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 yr (2027) | ~2,091 | -1 | $0 |
| 3 yr (2029) | ~2,090 | -2 | $0 |
| 5 yr (2031) | ~2,089 | -3 | $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.
Enrollment down 6.2% vs. county +12.7%, AND stability (82.4%) below the county median. Fewer families are choosing the school, and the ones who do aren't staying through year-end.
407 of 2,308 students who enrolled at South High School this year didn't maintain continuous enrollment (17.6% 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 4.5 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).
+2.2 pp above peer median (9.3%) · Ranked #4 of 11 similar schools
18.5%
9.3%
53.3%
11.5%
Higher than 25% of California high schools (1105 ranked, ≥50 seniors)
South High School's UC Reach of 11.5% is below the California median (18.5%). The top 10% of CA schools achieve 53.3% or higher.
In Kern County, where the local median is just 9.6%, this score is unusually strong for its immediate market.
Overall, South High School's UC Reach is higher than 25% of California high schools (1105 ranked).
South High School — Enrollment & Outcomes Snapshot
Public · Bakersfield · vs. 10 most similar nearby schools
- ▸On UC Reach, South High School sits in the middle of its similar-school group (ranked #4 of 11): 12% vs. a peer median of 9%.
- ▸Its UC Reach has held roughly steady since 2018.
- ▸Senior-class enrollment is up 6% (497→528 from 2018 to 2026), tracking the peer-group median of +8%.
- ▸At its recent rate (-0.0%/yr), enrollment projects to ~2090 by 2029 — about 2 fewer students than today.
Enrollment projection
That's about 2 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| South High School | Public | 2092 | 11.5% | +6% |
| Peer-group median | 9.3% | +8% | ||
| Del Oro High | Public | 2062 | 2.9% | +23% |
| Golden Valley High School | Public | 2153 | 12.5% | -3% |
| West High School | Public | 2188 | 9.2% | +8% |
| Mira Monte High School | Public | 2025 | 9.6% | +3% |
| East Bakersfield High School | Public | 2215 | 8.4% | +5% |
| Foothill High School | Public | 1990 | 5.0% | +8% |
| North High School | Public | 2112 | 5.4% | +36% |
| Ridgeview High School | Public | 2530 | 12.3% | +9% |
| Stockdale High School | Public | 2366 | 25.3% | +8% |
| Centennial High School | Public | 2311 | 9.4% | +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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| UC Berkeley | 3.79 | 16.7% | 11.9% | +4.8pp | On target |
| UC San Diego | 3.74 | 25.6% | 26.7% | -1.0pp | On target |
| UC Santa Barbara | 3.69 | 26.7% | 26.9% | -0.3pp | On target |
| UC Irvine | 3.75 | 20.5% | 18.9% | +1.6pp | On target |
| UC Davis | 3.75 | 31.7% | 32.0% | -0.3pp | On target |
Where South High School sits vs. all California schools ⓘ
Overall, this school admits its UC applicants in line with what their GPAs predict (24.5% actual vs. 23.8% 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 | 36 | 6 | 3 | 16.7% | 1.3% | 50.0% | 3.79 | 4.26 |
| UCLA → Elite | 62 | — | — | — | — | — | 3.81 | — |
| UC San Diego → Selective | 39 | 10 | 3 | 25.6% | 2.1% | 30.0% | 3.74 | 4.10 |
| UC Santa Barbara → Selective | 60 | 16 | 3 | 26.7% | 3.4% | 18.8% | 3.69 | 4.12 |
| UC Irvine → Selective | 44 | 9 | 3 | 20.5% | 1.9% | 33.3% | 3.75 | 4.11 |
| UC Davis → | 41 | 13 | — | 31.7% | 2.8% | — | 3.75 | 4.11 |