Capistrano Valley High

Capistrano Valley High is a 9-12 campus of heavily attended scale in Mission Viejo, California, operated by Capistrano Unified, teacheing 1,991 students in grades 9 through 12. Compared to the state average of about 838 students per school, that is 138% larger than typical.

Within Capistrano Unified, which oversees 58 schools and 40,251 students, Capistrano Valley High is one campus in the system.

In terms of who attends, Capistrano Valley High records that the most-represented group is White (45%), with the rest of the student body spread across multiple groups. The remainder comes out to 31% Hispanic, 12% multiracial, 10% Asian. Compared to Orange County overall, the school's racial mix sits in roughly the same range.

On the resource side, The school employs 91 full-time-equivalent teachers, for a student-teacher ratio near 21.8:1. Statewide, the average ratio sits near 18.2:1, putting Capistrano Valley High higher than the state norm the norm. Around 41% of the student body qualifies for free or reduced-price meals, which schools and policymakers use as a rough income-mix signal. By comparison, Orange County runs at roughly 55%, so the school's eligibility rate is meaningfully below the surrounding baseline.

After controlling for student poverty, Capistrano Valley High performs roughly as the BeatsExpectations model predicts for a school with this FRL share. The predicted value is around 55.4%, the actual is 56.6%, a residual of +1.3 points.

Zooming out to the county, census data for Orange County shows the typical household earns roughly $116,289 per year, about 44% of the adult population holds a bachelor's degree or above, and census figures put the poverty rate at about 7%. Capistrano Valley High is one of 649 public schools in Orange County (combined enrollment of about 430,458 students).

The closest other public school is Niguel Hills Middle, roughly 1.0 miles away. 8 of the 8 nearest public schools sit inside a five-mile radius. On composite proficiency, Capistrano Valley High comes 6th of 7 in the immediate cluster, beneath the nearby-schools average of 65.7%.

Geographically, the school is in a residential area.

Looking at the recent track record. Capistrano Valley High's enrollment has decreased 5% since 2018, when it stood at 2,105 (now 1,991). Over the same period, the White share shrank from 55% to 45%. Class-load math has fell: from 25.4:1 in 2018 to 21.8:1 in 2025.

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