Summary:
The Upland Unified district serves roughly 8,900 students across 14 schools, from elementary through high school, in a California community with a mix of high-performing and struggling schools. Parents will find significant differences between schools, with top performers like Pepper Tree Elementary and Pioneer Junior High standing out for strong test scores and excellent student attendance, while others like Hillside High and Upland Junior High face major challenges with low academic achievement and very high chronic absenteeism.
There is a notable gap in middle school performance, where Pioneer Junior High ranks in the state's top 16% compared to Upland Junior High in the bottom 26%. At the high school level, Upland High has a very strong graduation rate and solid English scores, whereas Hillside High has alarmingly low test scores despite receiving the highest per-student funding and having the smallest class sizes in the district.
Overall, the district's strengths include above-average graduation rates and several high-achieving elementary schools like Pepper Tree, Magnolia Elementary, and Valencia Elementary. Key challenges are wide disparities in student outcomes between schools, consistently lower math performance compared to English, and a clear connection between high chronic absenteeism and lower academic achievement across all grade levels.
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