Kearny Digital Media & Design: This school runs ahead of the state average. The bar itself is the harder conversation.
Kearny Digital Media & Design posts 49% meeting the standard against 36% statewide — ahead of most, with real headroom above the bar.
| Scope | % Exceeded | % Met+ | Grad rate | College readiness | Absence | Suspension | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| This school | 45 | 18% | 49% | 97.5% | 0.0% | 17.7% | 1.3% |
| CA average · High School | 44 | 16% | 36% | 87.6% | 35.4% | 30.2% | 3.6% |
Kearny Digital Media & Design scores 45 of 100 on SchoolScope's Scope Score — the 50th percentile of 2,160 California high schools (CDE CAASPP 2025).
Measures test performance, attendance, and climate — not arts, community, or your kid. How we score →
🌱 Building Momentum — This label means the data doesn't clearly sort the school one way or the other — ask what the school is proud of, and what it's working on.
Most rating sites would stop at “49% proficient” and call it done. Kearny Digital Media & Design deserves a closer read. The school sits in San Diego, where two-thirds of students qualify for free or reduced lunch — and reading the numbers without that context misreads the school.
Kearny Digital Media & Design's low-income kids hit 74.0% proficiency in ELA — a number the same group reaches at 38.2% statewide. If you're trying to read past zip-code-driven test scores, that's the signal worth weighing.
The seven-year arc
Slipped from the 63rd to the 50th percentile since 2019.
This school hasn't fully recovered from the pandemic: 49% meet the standard today, versus 63% in 2019 — a gap worth asking about on a visit.
| Grade | 2019 | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Grade 11 | 79% | 71% | 60% | 75% | 75% |
| Grade | 2019 | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Grade 11 | 47% | 20% | 20% | 20% | 23% |
The story this school is actually telling
Of 100 students here: 49 are proficient by 11th grade → 98 graduate → 0 pass an AP exam. The gaps between those bars are the questions to ask.
Kearny Digital Media & Design's most underrated number
74.0% of low-income students met the ELA standard — versus 38.2% for the same group statewide. That's the strongest kind of signal a school can post: it holds across income lines.
The 7 things our score weighs
Ask how the school challenges kids who clear the standard early. The gap between meeting and exceeding is where pacing shows.
- Ask whether extra support — tutoring, counseling, small groups — reaches kids across income lines, not just the students already ahead.
- Ask what share of students complete the full college-prep course sequence, and who gets steered into it.
- Ask whether the tour can step into a working classroom — watch how the teacher handles a student who's stuck.
- Ask to tour while school's in session, and notice how hallways and transitions feel — culture shows up between classes, not just in them.
- Ask how the school communicates with families when a child starts to struggle.
- Ask what a typical day looks like for a new student in the first few weeks.
How every group of students does here
At Kearny Digital Media & Design in San Diego, 74.0% of low-income students met or exceeded the ELA standard in 2025, compared to 42.6% district-wide and 38.2% statewide. Kearny Digital Media & Design outperforms its district average for low-income students by 31.4 percentage points in ELA. Other subgroups: Low-Income students (21.6% Math proficient); Hispanic students (76.1% ELA proficient). The largest proficiency gap is 45.6 percentage points for disabilities students. Data source: California Department of Education, CAASPP 2024-25. 50 students tested.
10 of 16 student groups here are too small to report — a privacy protection, not a gap.
Showing up, and staying in class
Where the path goes
The path below follows attendance boundaries — scores shown for each next step.
Feeder patterns derived from NCES attendance boundary data. Boundaries are approximate and may have changed — verify with your school district for current assignments.
The people teaching here
Pay is set by the district, not the school.
What gets spent here
$1,478 per student arrives as federal Title funding — a measure of concentrated need, not school quality.
The district's current expense of education per student, from CDE's annual SACS filing — the freshest district spending figure the state publishes.
District-level, from the district's own SACS general-ledger filing — school-by-school breakdowns aren't published by the state.
Source: NCES F-33 · Full district breakdown →
The neighborhood it serves
Source: U.S. Census Bureau, American Community Survey 5-year estimates (2024) · ZIP-level
At 349 students, this school is much smaller than the typical California high school (≈1450).
On the state's science test (CAST), 39% met or exceeded the standard — science is tested in grades 5 and 8 but never enters the Scope Score.
Frequently asked questions
Is Kearny Digital Media & Design a good high school?
What are Kearny Digital Media & Design's CAASPP test scores?
How does Kearny Digital Media & Design rank in California?
What is the attendance and school culture like at Kearny Digital Media & Design?
How does Kearny Digital Media & Design compare to other schools in San Diego?
How does Kearny Digital Media & Design serve low-income and underrepresented students?
Your other options
Nearby High Schools
3 within ~3 mi · avg 66
Nearby Elementary Schools
3 within ~3 mi · avg 68
Private alternatives nearby
Private schools within ~10 miles. These schools do not participate in state testing and cannot be scored or ranked.
Every number on this page
Score factors, grade-level breakdowns, subgroup proficiency, and peer comparisons.
| ELA | Tested | EXC | MET | NEAR | NOT | MET+ | +/CA |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Grade 11 | 76 | 30% | 45% | 12% | 13% | 75% | +28 |
| Math | Tested | EXC | MET | NEAR | NOT | MET+ | +/CA |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Grade 11 | 78 | 6% | 17% | 26% | 51% | 23% | −0 |
| Science (CAST) | Tested | EXC | MET | NEAR | NOT |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Grade 5/8/11 | 89 | 9% | 30% | 58% | 2% |
CAST is tested in grades 5, 8, and once in high school — not annually. Not part of the Scope Score.
| Subgroup · ELA | Tested | MET+ | vs district | vs CA |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Socioeconomically Disadvantaged | 50 | 74.0% | +31 | +36 |
| Hispanic/Latino | 46 | 76.1% | +35 | +37 |
| Students with Disabilities | 17 | 29.4% | +6 | +12 |
| School | Dist | Scope | EXC | MET+ | Growth | Susp |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Kearny Digital Media & Design ← | — | 45 | 18.3% | 49.0% | — | 1.3% |
| High Tech High Mesa | 1.7 mi | 74 | 42.4% | 69.4% | — | 1.1% |
| School for Entrepreneurship and Technology | 0.9 mi | 71 | 38.8% | 69.0% | — | 3.2% |
| Kearny School of Biomedical Science and Technology | 0 mi | 52 | 20.6% | 49.4% | — | 0.6% |
| California average | — | 44 | 15.8% | 35.7% | — | 3.6% |
| Year | Scope | Pctile | Rank | Exc | Met+ | Absent | Susp | Growth |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2019 | 52 | 63 | #764 | 22.9% | 63.0% | 8.6% | 3.8% | — |
| 2022 | 43 | 48 | #1088 | 11.6% | 45.6% | 24.6% | 3.3% | — |
| 2023 | 42 | 46 | #1164 | 11.1% | 40.5% | 19.9% | 2.1% | — |
| 2024 | 46 | 57 | #922 | 19.6% | 47.5% | 19.9% | 2.0% | — |
| 2025 | 45 | 50 | #1071 | 18.3% | 49.0% | 17.7% | 1.3% | — |
| Group | 2019 | 2025 | Δ |
|---|---|---|---|
| Female | 4.3% | 18.6% | +14.3pp |
| Male | 6.6% | 12.1% | +5.5pp |
| Asian | 0.0% | 6.7% | +6.7pp |
| Black/African American | 12.5% | 12.5% | +0.0pp |
| Filipino | 0.0% | — | — |
| White | 0.0% | 0.0% | +0.0pp |
| Hispanic/Latino | 6.3% | 16.8% | +10.5pp |
| Two or More Races | 7.7% | 11.8% | +4.1pp |
| Students with Disabilities | 10.0% | 20.5% | +10.5pp |
| English Learners | 7.1% | 17.9% | +10.8pp |
| Homeless | 6.3% | 23.1% | +16.8pp |
| Socioeconomically Disadvantaged | 5.5% | 17.1% | +11.6pp |
| All Students | 5.6% | 15.0% | +9.4pp |
SchoolScope scores and verdicts are our interpretation of public California Department of Education data — independent analysis, not an official rating. How we analyze · Request a correction