Every year, we publish school performance data, alongside helpful how-to articles, to help parents better understand our region’s education system.
And this year, for the first time-ever, we’ve added private school data. If you haven’t already, you can download a free copy of our 2026 A Parent’s Guide to San Diego Schools here.
Our guide has data on all public schools in San Diego County. We provide information on test scores, chronic absenteeism and graduation rates. You can see how your school performed here.
We know that test scores don’t paint a full picture, so we also use a special metric we created in partnership with UC San Diego Extended Studies Center for Research and Evaluation that takes poverty into account when analyzing test scores.
New! Private Schools: Every year we publish the guide, I get messages from parents who want to know more about private schools. In the past, it has been difficult to include them because private schools don’t report the same data points as public schools are required report to the state.
But we heard you and found a way to provide information on private school enrollment, tuition, financial aid and more. To kick off this new effort, we started with private schools with more than 200 kids.
If you have any feedback on the guide or requests for future additions, let me know. You can send me a note at andrea.sanchez@voiceofsandiego.org.
Your guide to the guide: We’re hosting a guide workshop on Monday, March 2, at 4:30 p.m. at the Children’s Museum in Escondido. You can RSVP here.
Grab some cafecito, here’s what you need to know to start your week.
Speaking of Schools
How many kids fit in one school?
The question seems simple, but it took us months to get answers.
Education reporter Jakob McWhinney focused a lot last year on covering the enrollment decline schools are experiencing. San Diego Unified School District, the largest school district in the county, lost about 16,000 students as of the last school year.
McWhinney wanted to know how many of the school district’s schools were underutilized because of this trend. The district told us that data didn’t exist.
But it turns out, it does. McWhinney revealed this week that about 47 percent of district schools during the 2024-25 school year were underutilized.
Here are two examples McWhinney shared: “According to the report, Linda Vista’s Montgomery Middle is only about 31 percent full. While the school has room for 1,105 students, only 337 were enrolled last school year – a 768-student disparity. Last year, Kimbrough Elementary in Grant Hill enrolled 316 students, only about one third of the 934-student capacity listed in the report.”
Read the full story here and explore the data.
More Chisme to Start Your Week
- Voice of San Diego contributor Alan Berube explains in a new column how much money the San Diego region got from the feds despite funding drama. Read more here.
- North County reporter Tigist Layne has the latest on Palomar Health’s new partnership with UCSD Health. Read more here.
- Jakob McWinney and Jim Hinch report that Albert Einstein Academy’s elementary school has a new principal. The new hire is someone familiar to Voice readers. Read the story here.