Summary:
ZIP code 94947 has three high schools: Novato High and Marin Oaks High serve grades 9–12, while Nova Education Center serves grades 6–12. Their 2025–2026 results show a wide spread in academic outcomes, with a nearly 50-point gap between the highest and lowest schools in all-grades ELA. The most important finding is that families will encounter very different academic results depending on which school they consider.
Novato High leads in all three subjects, with 69% proficient in ELA, 37% in math and 34% in science; its ELA result is 20 points above the state, although its math and science results are each about 2 points below. Marin Oaks High is lowest, at 19% in ELA, 0% in math and 5% in science—30, 38 and 31 points below state results, respectively. Nova Education Center falls between them in all three subjects, at 59% in ELA, 29% in math and 14% in science.
Scores are changing unevenly: all three schools improved in ELA from 2024–2025 to 2025–2026, and the three-school average rose 10 points, while the math average increased 1 point and science fell 2 points; Nova’s science score dropped 27 points, unlike gains at the other two schools. SchoolDigger’s 2025–2026 percentiles were 75 for Novato, 52 for Nova and 16 for Marin Oaks; year over year, those rankings rose 10 and 8 points for Novato and Marin Oaks, but fell 11 for Nova. Attendance and completion add useful context: Nova had 10% chronic absenteeism and a 97% graduation rate, compared with 25% and 97% at Novato and 58% and 84% at Marin Oaks. Student-teacher ratios were 19.7 at Novato, 14.7 at Nova and 9.2 at Marin Oaks. The reported measure was free/reduced lunch eligible in 2024–2025: 48% at Novato, 33% at Nova and 83% at Marin Oaks; these figures describe school contexts, not causes of results. Because Nova serves additional grades, all-grades comparisons may reflect different grade mixes.
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