Santa Barbara County Office of Education

The Santa Barbara County Office of Education has three small schools serving students across grades 5–12, with Santa Barbara County Special Education serving K–12; together they enroll 107 students. The most important finding is that reported all-grades ELA proficiency is 0% at all three schools, compared with 49% statewide, while math proficiency is also far below the state level.

Santa Barbara County Special Education leads the group in reported math proficiency at 17%, versus 0% at both Santa Barbara County Juvenile Court and Santa Barbara County Community; even that result is 22 percentage points below the state’s 38%. Attendance sharply distinguishes the schools: Juvenile Court’s chronic absenteeism is 7%, compared with 45% at Special Education and 68% at Community. Juvenile Court is also below the state’s 18% absenteeism rate, while the other two are above it. Its 75% graduation rate exceeds the district’s 55%, though it remains below the state’s 88%. Science does not allow a school-to-school comparison because two schools’ results were suppressed.

For the schools with results in both years, reported ELA and math proficiency stayed at 0% from 2024–25 to 2025–26 at Juvenile Court and Community; statewide results rose slightly over that period. SchoolDigger lists Juvenile Court at rank 2,115 of 2,137, percentile 1, with zero stars in 2025–26; its supplied percentile fell from 14 in 2017–18. As context, all three schools reported high free/reduced lunch eligible shares in 2024–25, from 88% to 90%, and student-teacher ratios ranged from 6.5 to 10.2. The two schools serving grades 5–12 have notably different attendance despite similar low-income shares: Community’s absenteeism is 68% and Juvenile Court’s is 7%, so these measures offer distinct considerations for families.