Marco Forster Middle

Marco Forster Middle is one of the middle-of-the-pack 6-8 campuss in San Juan Capistrano, California, run under Capistrano Unified, with 930 students on its rolls from grades 6 through 8. Compared to the state average of about 659 students per school, that is 41% above typical.

Within Capistrano Unified, which oversees 58 schools and 40,251 students, Marco Forster Middle is one campus in the system.

On demographics, Marco Forster Middle logs that 70% of the student body identifies as Hispanic. Other groups include 23% White, 5% multiracial. By comparison, Orange County as a whole is about 34% Hispanic, so the school skews visibly more Hispanic than its surroundings.

On the income-and-resources front, On paper, Marco Forster Middle has 46 full-time-equivalent teachers, translating to a class-load average of around 20.4:1. That tracks the state average closely. An estimated 75% of students are eligible for free or reduced-price lunch, often used as a Title I proxy. By comparison, Orange County runs at roughly 55%, so the school's eligibility rate is somewhat above the surrounding baseline.

After controlling for student poverty, Marco Forster Middle tracks the demographic baseline. The model predicts 34.8% given the school's FRL share; actual proficiency is 41.0%.

Across the wider county, community-level numbers for Orange County indicate median household earnings sit near $116,289, 44% of adults hold a bachelor's degree or higher, and census figures put the poverty rate at about 7%. Marco Forster Middle is one of 649 public schools in Orange County (combined enrollment of about 430,458 students).

Del Obispo Elementary is the nearest neighboring public school, about 0.1 miles from this campus. Counting just inside five miles, 8 other public schools cluster around Marco Forster Middle. Ranking that nearby cluster on reported proficiency puts Marco Forster Middle at 3rd of 4; the average score across the group is 45.3%.

Geographically, the school is in a residential area.

Looking at the recent track record. Looking back 7 years, enrollment at Marco Forster Middle has declined 33%, going from 1,383 students in 2018 to 930 in 2025. The White share of enrollment shrank from 32% to 23% over that span.

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