High Schools in Garden City

Garden City has two high schools: Garden City High School, serving grades 9–12, and Unified School District 457 Virtual Academy, serving grades 7–12, in Garden City. The clearest shared academic challenge is math: the schools averaged 13% proficiency, compared with 41% statewide, a 28-point gap; even the stronger school, Garden City High School, scored 19%, 22 points below the state.

Neither school leads across every subject. Garden City High School had the higher all-grades ELA result, 25% to 24%, and math result, 19% to 8%; the Virtual Academy led in science, 32% to 22%. The same-grade results show a similar split: Garden City High School led grade 10 ELA by 7 points and math by 13, while the Virtual Academy led grade 11 science by 14 points. The Virtual Academy’s science stands out as a relative strength: its grade 11 result was 36%, above the state’s 30%, while Garden City High School’s was 22%. Because the Virtual Academy includes grades 7 and 8, same-grade comparisons are especially useful alongside all-grades results.

Recent results show Garden City High School’s ELA improving but the two-school average losing ground to the state. From 2024–25 to 2025–26, Garden City High School’s ELA rose by 3 points, while the Virtual Academy’s fell by 9; the area average fell by 3 as the state result rose by 1. Math also declined at both schools, and the average-to-state gap widened by 6 points. SchoolDigger places Garden City High School at the 15th percentile, up from the 7th two years earlier, and the Virtual Academy at the 19th percentile, down from the 23rd the prior year; both have one star. Other outcomes differ too: Garden City High School’s graduation rate was 93%, versus 83% at the Virtual Academy, while chronic absenteeism was lower at the Virtual Academy—11% versus 19%—but its dropout rate was higher, 8% versus 1%.