Introducing Voice of San Diego’s Acorn Awards: This week are giving out a new set of recognitions to highlight schools that outperform expectations on a metric comparing student income to test scores, which we developed in partnership with UC San Diego Extended Studies Center for Research and Evaluation.
In just five years, Mission Bay High School students have flipped the script on struggling test scores.
In 2021, students at the Mission Bay school were severely underperforming on state tests. Now, most students are scoring above proficiency level in math and English language arts. The school’s graduation rate also increased from 93 percent to 98 percent.
For the first time ever, Voice of San Diego is giving out awards to recognize schools that outperform expectations on a metric we created in partnership with UC San Diego Extended Studies Center for Research and Evaluation. Out of all the schools in San Diego County, Mission Bay High School has improved the most since 2021.
Our income vs. test score metric compares projected test scores based on a school’s percentage of students who qualify for free and reduced-price meals and compares it to the school’s current ELA and math scores. Schools with scores of “0” on the metric are performing exactly as expected for their income bracket, while schools in the negative are performing worse than their poverty level average and schools above “0” are performing better.
Before 2021, Mission Bay High stood at negative 62 against the metric. Now the high school boasts a score of nearly 50, a 110-point improvement.
Eric Brown took over as principal about the same time Mission Bay high school student performance began to improve. The school had been without a long-term principal for a few years.
Brown says Mission Bay is unique in that it teaches kids from all over the United States, with many families drawn to Mission Bay High’s robust sports program and the rigor of its academic offerings. Those include international baccalaureate curriculum and Mandarin and Spanish dual language programs.
Brown said every staff member is committed to what is best for students.
“I don’t know about other schools, but here at Mission Bay, [teachers] care. They care deeply,” Brown said.
Brown said that before his arrival, the ingredients for a thriving school were already there, but the vision wasn’t clear.
“A lot of times, students’ voices are not heard. When you don’t listen to them, they don’t care,” Brown said.
Hannah Chappell, a senior at Mission Bay High School, said she’s gone to every staff member at the school and each has been able to address her issue or support her passion.
Mission Bay High School restructured its budget in 2021, expanding before-school programming and added a wellness center and community garden aimed at improving student mental health.
For Gloria Cota, the school’s wellness coordinator, the center was a matter of bridging the gap between local students and Mission Bay’s high population of commuters who have less time to access some of those on-campus benefits.
The need to bridge that gap is especially acute at Mission Bay High. Because of the allure of the school’s specialized academic programs, and the fact that there are relatively few high-school aged kids living in the area, Mission Bay High has turned into a sort of de facto magnet school. The high school has for years been San Diego Unified’s least local school, with more than 60 percent of students choicing in from elsewhere in the district.
“How do we bring them up to the same level, so everything can just be equitable?” Cota asked herself.
Cota’s answer was: A safe student space focused on mental health.
“I think the staff at Mission Bay really values the relationships with their students,” Marco Mullet, a student who holds club meetings in the wellness center said.