West High
📄 Shareable scorecard →Compare with peers
Most similar nearby schools
South High → North High → Torrance High School → Palos Verdes Peninsula Hs → Leuzinger High School → Compare all similar →Enrollment trend & projection
If this trend holds (-1.9%/yr, Total enrollment)
At per-pupil funding of $ / student:
| Horizon | Projected Total enrollment | Change | Funding impact / yr |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 yr (2027) | ~1,714 | -33 | $0 |
| 3 yr (2029) | ~1,651 | -96 | $0 |
| 5 yr (2031) | ~1,590 | -157 | $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 West High stay (93.7% stability — elite). But enrollment is dropping 1.4× the county rate (school -11.2% 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.
116 of 1,848 students who enrolled at West High this year didn't maintain continuous enrollment (6.3% 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 3.6 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 — Torrance 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: 35.3%
Federal: 8.5%
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 Torrance 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).
+16.1 pp above peer median (28.8%) · Ranked #4 of 11 similar schools
18.5%
28.8%
53.3%
44.9%
Higher than 85% of California high schools (1105 ranked, ≥50 seniors)
West High's UC Reach of 44.9% 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%.
Against similar schools, West High stands out clearly — the peer-group median is 28.8%.
For context, the elite tier (top 1%) clears 102.7% — a gap of 58 pp from where this school sits.
Overall, West High's UC Reach is higher than 85% of California high schools (1105 ranked).
West High — Enrollment & Outcomes Snapshot
Public · vs. 10 most similar nearby schools
- ▸On UC Reach, West High sits in the middle of its similar-school group (ranked #4 of 11): 45% vs. a peer median of 29%.
- ▸Its UC Reach has risen 13 points since 2018.
- ▸Senior-class enrollment is down 11% (481→427 from 2018 to 2026), tracking the peer-group median of -9%.
- ▸At its recent rate (-1.9%/yr), enrollment projects to ~1651 by 2029 — about 96 fewer students than today.
Enrollment projection
That's about 96 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| West High | Public | 1747 | 44.9% | -11% |
| Peer-group median | 28.8% | -9% | ||
| South High | Public | 1707 | 35.9% | -14% |
| North High | Public | 1847 | 28.8% | +7% |
| Torrance High School | Public | 1939 | 28.8% | +2% |
| Palos Verdes Peninsula Hs | Public | 1899 | 70.8% | -8% |
| Leuzinger High School | Public | 2014 | 19.0% | +4% |
| Palos Verdes High School | Public | 1605 | 57.0% | -27% |
| Hawthorne High School | Public | 1549 | 15.0% | -23% |
| Mira Costa High School | Public | 2492 | 59.9% | +3% |
| Carson High School | Public | 1412 | 20.9% | -10% |
| Nathaniel Narbonne Senior High | Public | 1328 | 23.1% | -30% |
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 | 3.97 | 13.5% | 12.3% | +1.2pp | On target |
| UCLA | 3.89 | 9.1% | 9.0% | +0.1pp | On target |
| UC San Diego | 3.88 | 22.4% | 22.6% | -0.2pp | On target |
| UC Santa Barbara | 3.88 | 28.8% | 27.8% | +0.9pp | On target |
| UC Irvine | 3.86 | 25.3% | 21.7% | +3.6pp | On target |
| UC Davis | 3.94 | 46.6% | 32.5% | +14.2pp | Over |
Where West High sits vs. all California schools ⓘ
Overall, this school admits its UC applicants in line with what their GPAs predict (23.8% actual vs. 20.8% 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 | 111 | 15 | 11 | 13.5% | 3.3% | 73.3% | 3.97 | 4.23 |
| UCLA → Elite | 154 | 14 | 10 | 9.1% | 3.1% | 71.4% | 3.89 | 4.31 |
| UC San Diego → Selective | 156 | 35 | 13 | 22.4% | 7.8% | 37.1% | 3.88 | 4.27 |
| UC Santa Barbara → Selective | 139 | 40 | 3 | 28.8% | 8.9% | 7.5% | 3.88 | 4.25 |
| UC Irvine → Selective | 170 | 43 | 14 | 25.3% | 9.6% | 32.6% | 3.86 | 4.24 |
| UC Davis → | 118 | 55 | 6 | 46.6% | 12.2% | 10.9% | 3.94 | 4.20 |