Culver Park High: The scores are below where anyone wants them. Here's what they don't tell you.

Culver Park is Culver City Unified's continuation high school — a small, separate campus for students who need a different path to a diploma than the district's comprehensive high school offers. It serves 40 students in grades 10-12 (CDE CALPADS enrollment, 2024-25), and its numbers should be read against that mission, not against a typical high school's report card.

The strongest fact on the page is the graduation rate: 92.3% of this cohort earned a diploma (CDE cohort graduation rate, 2024-25). For a school built to re-engage students who were already off track, that's a real signal the model is doing its core job. Sitting next to it, though, is a set of numbers that look very different from a comprehensive campus: A-G college-eligibility completion at 16.7% (CDE A-G completion, 2024-25), chronic absenteeism at 65.5% (CDE chronic absenteeism, 2024-25), and an average teacher experience of just 1.7 years, with a third of the staff in their first year (CDE staff assignment data, 2024-25). None of these facts contradict the graduation number. They describe the population and the staffing pattern of a continuation school, where students often arrive already disconnected from daily attendance and from a college-prep course sequence. The job here is getting kids to a diploma, not running a college pipeline — and the two figures, read together, say the school is succeeding at the first without claiming to do the second.

The school's own language is worth checking against the record, because it makes some specific claims. It says small class sizes create an intimate, connected learning environment — and an enrollment of 40 backs that up plainly. It also says its 'experienced educators' deliver individualized instruction, but the experience data (1.7 years average, a third of teachers in year one, CDE staff assignment data, 2024-25) doesn't match that word. A small staff on a small campus can still build fast, close relationships with students, even with several new teachers on board. But a family should ask directly what staff turnover has looked like and how new teachers are supported mid-year.

The site also frames its programs as preparation for '4-year colleges, community colleges, trade schools, or the workforce.' The data splits that claim in half. Zero AP courses (CDE course enrollment data, 2024-25) and 16.7% A-G completion (CDE A-G completion, 2024-25) don't point toward a four-year-college pipeline. The 92.3% graduation rate (CDE cohort graduation rate, 2024-25) does point toward a working diploma-and-workforce or two-year pathway. The four-year-college half of the school's own sentence isn't backed by the course data, while the diploma and workforce half is well supported by the graduation number. That's a fair question to bring to a campus visit: what does advising look like for a student who wants to go on to a trade program or community college from here?

A suspension rate of 2.6% is low in absolute terms, alongside the school's claim to prioritize social and emotional well-being. But chronic absenteeism at 65.5% (CDE chronic absenteeism, 2024-25) suggests many students aren't showing up consistently regardless of how the campus feels once they're there — and the data available can't say whether that pattern started before or after they enrolled at Culver Park. That's a genuine unknown, not something to read as a failure of the school's climate or discipline approach.

With only 40 students, every rate on this page can move sharply with a single class. The most useful next step isn't comparing Culver Park's numbers to a comprehensive high school's — it's asking the school how this year's cohort compares to last year's, and what brought individual students to this campus in the first place.