Summary:
The Santa Cruz County Office of Education district in California oversees three high schools serving students in grades 9-12. These schools, while located in the same county, exhibit significant disparities in student demographics, academic performance, graduation rates, and other key metrics.
The largest school, Santa Cruz County Community, has a relatively diverse student population but struggles with below-average test scores and a high dropout rate of 33.2%. In contrast, the smaller Santa Cruz County Career Advancement Charter school has a predominantly Hispanic student body and an alarmingly low four-year graduation rate of just 36.7%, coupled with a dropout rate of 63.3%. The smallest school, Santa Cruz County Court, serves the most economically disadvantaged population, with 95.38% of students qualifying for free or reduced-price lunch, and has the lowest academic performance and the highest chronic absenteeism rate in the district at 46.2%.
These stark differences in student outcomes across the three high schools in the Santa Cruz County Office of Education district suggest the need for targeted interventions and support systems to address the specific challenges faced by each school, particularly the lower-performing ones, in order to improve student success and ensure more equitable educational opportunities for all students in the region.
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