Pierce High

Pierce High is a senior high of compact scale in Arbuckle, California, one of the schools within Pierce Joint Unified, teacheing 463 students in grades 9 through 12. By comparison, California's public schools average about 838 students each, so Pierce High sits 45% smaller than that benchmark.

Pierce Joint Unified runs 5 schools in total, collectively educating 1,447 students. Pierce High is one of those campuses.

For racial and ethnic makeup, Pierce High lists that 82% of students identify as Hispanic, making the school strongly Hispanic-majority. Beyond that, the school shows 14% White. That is visibly more Hispanic than the county at large, where the share is closer to 63%.

On the income-and-resources front, Staff filings list 27 full-time-equivalent teachers, which works out to roughly 17.3:1 students per teacher. Statewide, the average ratio sits near 18.2:1, putting Pierce High tighter than the state norm the norm. An estimated 76% of students are eligible for free or reduced-price lunch, often used as a Title I proxy.

On a demographically-adjusted basis, Pierce High performs roughly as the BeatsExpectations model predicts for a school with this FRL share. The predicted value is around 34.2%, the actual is 30.2%, a residual of -4.0 points.

Around the school, Colusa County reports that the typical household earns roughly $75,672 per year, roughly 16% of adults have completed at least a four-year degree, and roughly 10% of residents live below the federal poverty line. Pierce High is one of 23 public schools in Colusa County (combined enrollment of about 4,732 students).

Nearest neighbor: Arbuckle Alternative High (Continuation), around 0.0 miles off. 3 of the 8 nearest public schools sit inside a five-mile radius. On composite proficiency, Pierce High comes 3rd of 4 in the immediate cluster, behind the nearby-schools average of 30.3%.

The campus sits in a small-town setting.

Five-year trend. Over the past 7-year window, the student count climbed 6%: 436 students in 2018 compared to 463 in 2025. Over the same period, the White share ticked down from 24% to 14%. The student-to-teacher ratio tightened from 20.3:1 in 2018 to 17.3:1 today.

On this page, the feed for Pierce High typically covers pickup logistics, teacher feedback, and after-school programs. The community welcomes input from current and former families.