Watsonville High School
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Most similar nearby schools
Pajaro Valley Hs → North Salinas High School → Christopher High School → Salinas High School → Gilroy High School → Compare all similar →Enrollment trend & projection
If this trend holds (-0.1%/yr, Total enrollment)
At per-pupil funding of $ / student:
| Horizon | Projected Total enrollment | Change | Funding impact / yr |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 yr (2027) | ~2,229 | -3 | $0 |
| 3 yr (2029) | ~2,224 | -8 | $0 |
| 5 yr (2031) | ~2,219 | -13 | $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 Santa Cruz County baseline — the demographic tide is moving every CA HS, so a school's gap vs. county is the actionable signal.
Enrollment down 0.6% vs. county +3.1%, AND stability (88.2%) below the county median. Fewer families are choosing the school, and the ones who do aren't staying through year-end.
275 of 2,322 students who enrolled at Watsonville High School this year didn't maintain continuous enrollment (11.8% 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 down 33.2 pp since 2016-17. Engagement improving — a positive trajectory worth understanding and reinforcing.
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 — Pajaro Valley 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: 28.7%
Federal: 16.4%
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 Pajaro Valley 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).
-5.3 pp vs. peer median (19.5%) · Ranked #7 of 11 similar schools
18.5%
53.3%
14.2%
Higher than 37% of California high schools (1105 ranked, ≥50 seniors)
Watsonville High School's UC Reach of 14.2% is below the California median (18.5%). The top 10% of CA schools achieve 53.3% or higher.
Overall, Watsonville High School's UC Reach is higher than 37% of California high schools (1105 ranked).
Watsonville High School — Enrollment & Outcomes Snapshot
Public · Watsonville · vs. 10 most similar nearby schools
- ▸On UC Reach, Watsonville High School sits in the middle of its similar-school group (ranked #7 of 11): 14% vs. a peer median of 20%.
- ▸Its UC Reach has risen 6 points since 2018.
- ▸Across the top-6 UC campuses, Watsonville High School is admitting at roughly +10 percentage points above what its average applicant GPA (3.798) alone would predict (33% actual vs. 23% expected). That's a meaningful signal — it can reflect UC's track record with this school's graduates, students presenting strongly in UC's holistic review (essays, EC's, context), or institutional familiarity helping at the margin. The data can't distinguish which, but the pattern itself is real and worth understanding.
- ▸Senior-class enrollment is up 1% (507→510 from 2018 to 2026), tracking the peer-group median of -0%.
- ▸At its recent rate (-0.1%/yr), enrollment projects to ~2224 by 2029 — about 8 fewer students than today.
Enrollment projection
That's about 8 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Watsonville High School | Public | 2232 | 14.2% | +1% |
| Peer-group median | 19.5% | -0% | ||
| Pajaro Valley Hs | Public | 1270 | 10.9% | -4% |
| North Salinas High School | Public | 2046 | 11.6% | +15% |
| Christopher High School | Public | 1628 | 13.1% | +1% |
| Salinas High School | Public | 2356 | 24.2% | -8% |
| Gilroy High School | Public | 1546 | 9.8% | +23% |
| Aptos High School | Public | 1258 | 28.4% | -6% |
| Everett Alvarez High School | Public | 1826 | 18.9% | -11% |
| Rancho San Juan High School | Public | 1559 | 29.0% | +31% |
| Santa Teresa High School | Public | 2205 | 27.5% | -1% |
| Alisal High School | Public | 2811 | 20.1% | +0% |
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 | 3.82 | 10.2% | 11.7% | -1.6pp | On target |
| UC San Diego | 3.73 | 29.7% | 27.1% | +2.7pp | On target |
| UC Santa Barbara | 3.82 | 51.7% | 26.7% | +25.0pp | Over |
| UC Irvine | 3.89 | 28.9% | 22.4% | +6.5pp | Over |
| UC Davis | 3.75 | 52.6% | 32.0% | +20.6pp | Over |
Where Watsonville High School sits vs. all California schools ⓘ
Overall, this school admits its UC applicants 9.8 points above what their GPAs predict (33.2% actual vs. 23.4% 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 | 59 | 6 | 3 | 10.2% | 1.2% | 50.0% | 3.82 | 4.08 |
| UCLA → Elite | 49 | — | — | — | — | — | 3.80 | — |
| UC San Diego → Selective | 37 | 11 | — | 29.7% | 2.1% | — | 3.73 | 4.09 |
| UC Santa Barbara → Selective | 29 | 15 | 3 | 51.7% | 2.9% | 20.0% | 3.82 | 4.07 |
| UC Irvine → Selective | 38 | 11 | 4 | 28.9% | 2.1% | 36.4% | 3.89 | 4.08 |
| UC Davis → | 57 | 30 | 14 | 52.6% | 5.8% | 46.7% | 3.75 | 4.04 |