SVUSD Report Card - Part 3. Beyond API Scores

The previous two articles examined API scores. It’s clear that compared to the 3 other school districts serving children in South Orange County –

• SVUSD schools had the lowest average API scores.

• Schools in SVUSD had the least number of schools appearing in the Top 100 schools

But academic performance shouldn’t be the only criteria against which to evaluate schools. The OC Register has its own system in which they examine each school based on academic performance (API scores) and other factors such as environmental, number moving on to college, diversity, California fitness test, etc.

For 2014, the OC Register ranked 70 high schools, 88 middle schools, and 371 elementary schools throughout Orange County. Here are the results.

HIGH SCHOOL

Among the 70 high schools in Orange County, El Toro HS In Lake Forest ranked 22nd.

SVUSD had a total of 4 high schools. The highest ranked school was Mission Viejo (15th) while Laguna Hills (38th) and Trabuco Hills (43rd) were lower than ETHS. This is not a terrible record, but it’s nothing to boast about either.

According to the OC Register, 18 high schools were singled out for gold, silver, or bronze medals. Here are the medals for the 4 schools districts in South Orange County.

• Irvine (1 Gold, 2 Bronze) 

• Laguna Beach (1 Gold)

• Capistrano (1 Bronze)

MIDDLE SCHOOL

Among the 88 middle schools, Lake Forest’s Serrano ranked 19th.

SVUSD had a total of 4 middle schools. Serrano was the highest ranked school followed by Los Alisos (26th), La Paz (34th), and RSM (49th). This is not a terrible record either, but it’s nothing to boast about either.

According to the OC Register, 18 middle schools were singled out for gold, silver, or bronze medals. Here are the medals for the 4 schools districts in South Orange County.

• Capistrano (1 Gold, 3 Bronze)

• Irvine (2 Silver, 1 Bronze) 

• Laguna Beach (1 Silver)

• SVUSD - 0

ELEMENTARY SCHOOL

Among the 371 elementary schools, Lake Forest had 8 schools. Here are their ranks –

• Portola – 66

• La Madera – 68

The best school in Lake Forest ranked 66 out of 371 elementary schools in Orange County. If you look at the 8 Lake Forest schools, the average rank is 163.

According to the OC Register, 22 elementary schools were singled out for gold, silver, or bronze medals. Of the 4 schools districts only Irvine received medals (2 Gold, 2 Bronze).

SUMMARY

Using the broad gauge of school performance used by the OC Register, schools in Lake Forest were found to be mediocre compared to the rest of the schools in Orange County. We were 22nd out of 70 in high schools, 19th  out of 88 for middle schools, and 163rd out of 371 for elementary schools. Converting these ranks to percentages, our percent for high, middle and elementary schools are 31%, 22%, and 44%. None of these results are good, nor are they very bad.

Looked at from the perspective of medals, the OC Register awarded 58 medals across the elementary, middle, and high schools. Here are the totals –

• Irvine 10 (3 Gold, 2 Silver, 5 Bronze)

• Capistrano  5 (1 Gold, 1 Silver, 3 Bronze)

• SVUSD 2 (1 Silver, 1 Bronze)

Considering that Laguna Beach has only 4 schools, having 1 with a Silver medal is quite an achievement, compared to SVUSD that has 34 schools and achieved 1 Silver and 1 Bronze. IOW 25% of Laguna Beach's school received a medal while only 6% of SVUSD received a medal. So SVUSD had the lowest percentage of schools awarded a medal.

Next time we’ll look at “distinguished schools”.