Summary:
The Santa Cruz County Office of Education has three county-office high schools: two serve grades 7–12, while Santa Cruz County Career Advancement Charter serves grade 12 only. The schools differ substantially in size, from 20 students at Santa Cruz County Court to 730 at Santa Cruz County Community. Most importantly, Career Advancement’s 2025–2026 graduation rate was 27%, compared with 88% statewide, and its dropout rate was 73%, versus 8% statewide.
Community leads Career Advancement in the clearest school-to-school academic comparison: 2025–2026 all-grades science proficiency was 19% at Community and 0% at Career Advancement, a 19-point gap; in grade 12, the results were 20% and 0%, a 20-point gap. Community also scored below the state in all three reported all-grades subjects: 28% in ELA, 6% in math, and 19% in science, compared with state results of 49%, 38%, and 36%. Its largest shortfall was in math, at 32 points; its science gap was 17 points. A complete three-school test ranking is not possible because Court’s ELA and math results were suppressed, and Career Advancement reported science results only.
Recent changes show no clear catch-up to the state: from 2024–2025 to 2025–2026, Community’s ELA result fell 3 points, math was essentially unchanged, and science rose 1 point; Career Advancement remained at 0% in science while the state science result rose 3 points. SchoolDigger rates the district at the 78th percentile with 4 stars, while its rating for Community is at the 27th percentile with 1 star; these rankings are distinct from proficiency scores. Context also differs across schools: in 2024–2025, free/reduced lunch eligible students made up 59% at Community, 12% at Career Advancement, and 85% at Court. Student-teacher ratios that year were 22.6 at Community, 27.4 at Career Advancement, and 10 at Court. These figures describe different school settings, but do not by themselves explain student outcomes.
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