Palmdale Academy Charter: No single number tells this school's story. Here's the honest picture.
Palmdale Academy Charter posts 35% meeting the standard and 9.9% exceeding it, against 36% and 15.8% statewide. The gaps and the bright spots below are the real read.
| Scope | % Exceeded | % Met+ | Grad rate | College readiness | Absence | Suspension | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| This school | 49 | 10% | 35% | 95.4% | 36.7% | 22.1% | 3.1% |
| CA average · High School | 47 | 16% | 36% | 86.6% | 33.9% | 30.2% | 3.6% |
Palmdale Academy Charter scores 49 of 100 on SchoolScope's Scope Score — the 52nd 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 “35% proficient” and call it done. Palmdale Academy Charter deserves a closer read. The school sits in Palmdale, where two-thirds of students qualify for free or reduced lunch — and reading the numbers without that context misreads the school.
Palmdale Academy Charter's low-income kids hit 55.7% 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.
As a charter, Palmdale Academy Charter enrolls by application rather than address. That changes how you get in, but it doesn't change the score.
The seven-year arc
Has stayed near the 52nd percentile since 2024.
| Grade | 2024 | 2025 |
|---|---|---|
| Grade 11 | 59% | 57% |
| Grade | 2024 | 2025 |
|---|---|---|
| Grade 11 | 15% | 14% |
The story this school is actually telling
Of 100 students here: 35 are proficient by 11th grade → 95 graduate → 37 pass an AP exam. The gaps between those bars are the questions to ask.
Palmdale Academy Charter's most underrated number
55.7% 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 6 things our score weighs
Ask what the school is working on next. Strong numbers tell you where a school is, not where it's going.
- 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 Palmdale Academy Charter in Palmdale, 55.7% of low-income students met or exceeded the ELA standard in 2025, compared to 27.8% district-wide and 38.2% statewide. Palmdale Academy Charter outperforms its district average for low-income students by 27.9 percentage points in ELA. Other subgroups: Low-Income students (11.3% Math proficient); Hispanic students (60.5% ELA proficient). The largest proficiency gap is 56.8 percentage points for english learner students. Data source: California Department of Education, CAASPP 2024-25. 158 students tested.
5 of 14 student groups here are too small to report — a privacy protection, not a gap.
Showing up, and staying in class
Where the path goes
Palmdale Academy Charter serves grades K-12 — students can complete their entire K-12 education here, with no school-to-school transitions.
Where graduates go
In fall 2025, 6 of Palmdale Academy Charter's 209 graduates enrolled in the University of California system.
9 of 9 campuses are masked below UC's privacy floor — a protection, not a verdict.
campuses never sum to the universitywide figure — students apply to several
UC is one road of many — this says nothing about graduates who chose a CSU, a private, or an out-of-state campus. And who applied isn't who the school taught: the ratio between the two reflects the self-selected pool of students who chose to apply, not what happened in the classroom.
Data source: University of California Office of the President (UC Information Center), fall 2025 admissions cycle.
The people teaching here
Pay is set by the district, not the school.
Palmdale Academy Charter's teachers are authorized to teach 13 of the 40 AP subjects the College Board offers — including Calculus AB, Statistics, and Biology.
Data source: College Board AP Course Audit, 2025 - 2026 audit year (authorization, not enrollment) · IB World Schools directory, name-matched
What gets spent here
$506 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
On the state's science test (CAST), 24% met or exceeded the standard — science is tested in grades 5 and 8 and once in high school, and it never enters the Scope Score.
Frequently asked questions
Is Palmdale Academy Charter a good high school?
What are Palmdale Academy Charter's CAASPP test scores?
How does Palmdale Academy Charter rank in California?
What is the attendance and school culture like at Palmdale Academy Charter?
How does Palmdale Academy Charter compare to other schools in Palmdale?
How does Palmdale Academy Charter serve low-income and underrepresented students?
What AP courses are offered at Palmdale Academy Charter?
How many students from Palmdale Academy Charter go to UC?
Your other options
Nearby Elementary Schools
3 within ~3 mi · avg 37
Nearby Middle Schools
3 within ~3 mi · avg 21
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 nearest schools.
| ELA | Tested | EXC | MET | NEAR | NOT | MET+ | +/CA |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Grade 11 | 206 | 18% | 38% | 24% | 19% | 57% | +8 |
| Math | Tested | EXC | MET | NEAR | NOT | MET+ | +/CA |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Grade 11 | 207 | 1% | 13% | 29% | 57% | 14% | −10 |
We show the grade rows CDE publishes for this school. A missing grade or dash can mean the school does not serve that grade, no valid result was published, or the tested group was too small to report. It does not mean zero.
| Science (CAST) | Tested | EXC | MET | NEAR | NOT |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Schoolwide | 205 | 3% | 21% | 70% | 5% |
CAST is tested in grades 5 and 8, then once in grade 10, 11, or 12. This row is the school's all-student aggregate. Not part of the Scope Score.
| Subgroup · ELA | Tested | MET+ | vs district | vs CA |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Socioeconomically Disadvantaged | 158 | 55.7% | +28 | +17 |
| Hispanic/Latino | 162 | 60.5% | +29 | +22 |
| Students with Disabilities | 28 | 25.0% | +18 | +8 |
| School | Dist | Scope | EXC | MET+ | Grade gap | Cohort growth | Susp |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Palmdale Academy Charter ← | — | 49 | 9.9% | 35.4% | — | — | 3.1% |
| Palmdale High | 1.8 mi | 40 | 5.3% | 21.0% | — | — | 9.5% |
| California average | — | 47 | 15.8% | 35.7% | — | — | 3.6% |
| Year | Scope | Pctile | Rank | Exc | Met+ | Absent | Susp | Grade gap |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2024 | 49 | 54 | #978 | 11.9% | 37.0% | 27.1% | 6.1% | — |
| 2025 | 49 | 52 | #1032 | 9.9% | 35.4% | 22.1% | 3.1% | — |
- — Scored here as a high school — other grade spans appear in the data appendix.
| Group | 2019 | 2025 | Δ |
|---|---|---|---|
| Female | — | 24.1% | — |
| Male | — | 18.2% | — |
| Black/African American | — | 36.8% | — |
| White | — | 9.1% | — |
| Hispanic/Latino | — | 19.8% | — |
| American Indian/Alaska Native | — | 16.4% | — |
| Two or More Races | — | 41.7% | — |
| Students with Disabilities | — | 26.4% | — |
| English Learners | — | 15.7% | — |
| Homeless | — | 17.9% | — |
| Socioeconomically Disadvantaged | — | 23.5% | — |
| All Students | — | 21.4% | — |
| Year | Applied | Admitted | Enrolled | GPA (applied) | GPA (admitted) | GPA (enrolled) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2025 | 49 | 29 | 6 | 3.71 | 3.91 | 4.07 |
‹n = UC masks counts below n · a missing year means zero or masked — never assume zero · GPA cells blank for years with more than one contributing CEEB code (a summed GPA would be fabricated math) · GPAs live here and nowhere else on this page · Applied/Admitted/Enrolled reflect who applied, not what the school taught — no admit rate is computed or implied by this table. Series shown from 2014; full record to 1994 at the UC Infocenter.
| Campus | Year | Applied | Admitted | Enrolled |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Berkeley | 2025 | 16 | ‹3 | ‹3 |
| Davis | 2025 | 15 | 5 | ‹3 |
| Irvine | 2025 | 36 | 8 | ‹3 |
| Los Angeles | 2025 | 36 | ‹3 | ‹3 |
| Merced | 2025 | 13 | 13 | ‹3 |
| Riverside | 2025 | 25 | 18 | ‹3 |
| San Diego | 2025 | 22 | ‹3 | ‹3 |
| Santa Barbara | 2025 | 25 | 8 | ‹3 |
| Santa Cruz | 2025 | 7 | ‹3 | ‹3 |
| Universitywide | 2025 | 49 | 29 | 6 |
Σ campuses ≠ universitywide — students apply to several campuses; the Universitywide row (muted) is its own independent count, never a sum of the rows above it.
| Subject | Taught by |
|---|---|
| Biology | this school |
| Calculus AB | this school |
| English Language and Composition | this school |
| English Literature and Composition | this school |
| Precalculus | this school |
| Research | this school |
| Seminar | this school |
| Spanish Language and Culture | this school |
| Spanish Literature and Culture | this school |
| Statistics | this school |
| U.S. Government and Politics | this school |
| United States History | this school |
| World History: Modern | this school |
Authorization ≠ a section running this year — the Ledger records what the school may teach, not seat counts.
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