Verdugo Hills High School
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Most similar nearby schools
Anderson W. Clark Magnet High → Panorama High School → Robert Fulton College Preparatory → Arleta High School → John Muir High School → Compare all similar →Enrollment trend & projection
If this trend holds (-1.3%/yr, Total enrollment)
At per-pupil funding of $ / student:
| Horizon | Projected Total enrollment | Change | Funding impact / yr |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 yr (2027) | ~1,138 | -15 | $0 |
| 3 yr (2029) | ~1,108 | -45 | $0 |
| 5 yr (2031) | ~1,079 | -74 | $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.
Enrollment growth is beating Los Angeles County (-1.7% vs. -8.2%), but 204 of 1243 students didn't maintain continuous enrollment. Why are families leaving once enrolled? Chronic absenteeism is rising (27.3%, +14.2 pts since 2016-17) — a watch signal worth monitoring as a leading indicator.
204 of 1,243 students who enrolled at Verdugo Hills High School this year didn't maintain continuous enrollment (16.4% 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 14.2 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 — Los Angeles 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: 29.8%
Federal: 18.5%
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 Los Angeles 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).
-1.2 pp vs. peer median (18.4%) · Ranked #5 of 7 similar schools
18.5%
53.3%
17.2%
Higher than 47% of California high schools (1105 ranked, ≥50 seniors)
Verdugo Hills High School's UC Reach of 17.2% is below the California median (18.5%). The top 10% of CA schools achieve 53.3% or higher.
For context, the elite tier (top 1%) clears 102.7% — a gap of 86 pp from where this school sits.
Overall, Verdugo Hills High School's UC Reach is higher than 47% of California high schools (1105 ranked).
Verdugo Hills High School — Enrollment & Outcomes Snapshot
Public · Tujunga · vs. 10 most similar nearby schools
- ▸On UC Reach, Verdugo Hills High School sits in the middle of its similar-school group (ranked #5 of 7): 17% vs. a peer median of 18%.
- ▸Its UC Reach has held roughly steady since 2018.
- ▸Senior-class enrollment is down 2% (293→288 from 2018 to 2026), outpacing the peer-group median of -14%.
- ▸In business terms, this is market-share growth during a market contraction. Los Angeles County's senior population shrank 8% over the same window — Verdugo Hills High School only shrank 2%. So Verdugo Hills High School picked up about 6 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 (-1.3%/yr), enrollment projects to ~1108 by 2029 — about 45 fewer students than today.
Enrollment projection
That's about 45 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Verdugo Hills High School | Public | 1153 | 17.2% | -2% |
| Peer-group median | 18.4% | -14% | ||
| Anderson W. Clark Magnet High | Public | 1152 | — | -8% |
| Panorama High School | Public | 1198 | 32.7% | +13% |
| Robert Fulton College Preparatory | Public | 1214 | — | -18% |
| Arleta High School | Public | 998 | 11.9% | -25% |
| John Muir High School | Public | 1282 | 17.5% | +50% |
| Sylmar Charter High | Public | 1349 | — | -24% |
| Puc Community Charter Middle And Puc Community Charter Early College High | Public | 786 | — | -10% |
| Herbert Hoover High | Public | 1584 | 13.9% | -3% |
| San Fernando High School | Public | 1528 | 19.3% | -35% |
| Hollywood High School | Public | 980 | 31.1% | -26% |
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 | 4.01 | 17.9% | 12.7% | +5.1pp | Over |
| UCLA | 3.93 | 15.6% | 9.0% | +6.5pp | Over |
| UC San Diego | 3.87 | 21.3% | 23.1% | -1.8pp | On target |
| UC Santa Barbara | 3.91 | 31.0% | 28.7% | +2.2pp | On target |
| UC Irvine | 3.85 | 8.0% | 21.5% | -13.5pp | Under |
| UC Davis | 3.96 | 38.9% | 32.6% | +6.3pp | Over |
Where Verdugo Hills High School sits vs. all California schools ⓘ
Overall, this school admits its UC applicants in line with what their GPAs predict (20.0% actual vs. 20.5% 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 | 28 | 5 | — | 17.9% | 1.9% | — | 4.01 | 4.28 |
| UCLA → Elite | 45 | 7 | 5 | 15.6% | 2.6% | 71.4% | 3.93 | 4.20 |
| UC San Diego → Selective | 47 | 10 | — | 21.3% | 3.7% | — | 3.87 | 4.24 |
| UC Santa Barbara → Selective | 42 | 13 | — | 31.0% | 4.9% | — | 3.91 | 4.24 |
| UC Irvine → Selective | 50 | 4 | — | 8.0% | 1.5% | — | 3.85 | — |
| UC Davis → | 18 | 7 | — | 38.9% | 2.6% | — | 3.96 | 4.24 |