Desert Junior-Senior High

Desert Junior-Senior High, an intimate high school in Edwards, California, operated by Muroc Joint Unified, works with 497 students, covering grades 7 through 12. Compared to the state average of about 838 students per school, that is 41% leaner than typical.

Within Muroc Joint Unified, which oversees 6 schools and 1,803 students, Desert Junior-Senior High is one campus in the system.

On demographics, Desert Junior-Senior High logs that the largest single group is White at 36%, but no single group is in the majority. The remainder looks like 36% Hispanic, 17% multiracial, 5% Black, 5% Asian.

On the income-and-resources front, On paper, Desert Junior-Senior High has 30 full-time-equivalent teachers, translating to a class-load average of around 16.5:1. The state averages around 18.2:1, so this campus is tighter than the state norm typical. An estimated 13% of students are eligible for free or reduced-price lunch, which schools and policymakers use as a rough income-mix signal. That share is below Kern County's rate of about 76%.

Adjusting for the school's free-and-reduced-lunch share, Desert Junior-Senior High is in the bottom 10% of California public schools. The BeatsExpectations model predicts schools with this FRL share to land around 71.6%; Desert Junior-Senior High posts 28.4%, -43.2 points below that line.

Across the wider county, Kern County reports that median household income runs about $70,210, 19% of adults hold a bachelor's degree or higher, and census figures put the poverty rate at about 15%. In all, Kern County runs 279 public schools (combined enrollment of about 197,431 students), of which Desert Junior-Senior High is one.

Nearest neighbor: Irving L. Branch Elementary, around 0.1 miles off. Counting just inside five miles, 2 other public schools cluster around Desert Junior-Senior High. On composite proficiency, Desert Junior-Senior High comes 2nd of 5 in the immediate cluster, higher than the nearby-schools average of 17.9%.

The campus sits in a rural setting.

Looking at the recent track record. Desert Junior-Senior High's enrollment has stayed largely flat since 2018, when it stood at 507 (now 497). Over the same period, the Hispanic share ticked up from 25% to 36%. The student-to-teacher ratio tightened from 17.9:1 in 2018 to 16.5:1 today.

In the discussion threads here, members of the Desert Junior-Senior High community share and discuss sports schedules, lunch menu changes, and school spirit week. Posting is open to anyone connected to the school.