Los Alamitos Unified has Second Highest Graduation Rate In County

In 2010, The Los Alamitos Unified School District boasted the highest Hispanic graduation rate in Orange County and the second highest overall graduation rate.

Overall, it ranked second behind top-achieving Irvine Unified, according to the California Department of Education, which on Thursday released the latest figures for the class of 2010.

The graduation rate in Los Alamitos Unified for the class of 2010 was 95.5 percent right behind Irvine Unified with a graduation rate of 96.8 percent.

Neighboring school districts in South Orange County were not far behind. Saddleback Valley Unified had a 92.5 percent graduation rate, and boasted a graduation rate of 94 percent.

Los Alamitos far outpaced the average graduation rate in Orange County, which was 81.7 percent overall. Statewide, California saw a graduation rate of 74.4 percent last year.

Los Alamitos’ dropout rate of 2.6 percent was second lowest in the county, behind only Irvine, which had a 2 percent dropout rate and Capistrano Unified, which had a 2.4 percent dropout rate in 2010. Statewide, that figure was 18.2 percent; countywide, 14 percent. In total, Los Alamitos had 21 students drop out of school in 2010.

Unlike state and countywide statistics, Los Alamitos’ numbers don’t indicate an achievement gap—between Hispanic and white students. The graduation rate among Hispanics locally is 97.5 percent (slightly higher than the district wide average of 95.5 percent); while statewide it is only 67.7 percent. In Orange County, the average graduation rate among Hispanics was slightly better, at 71.1 percent.

When looking strictly at the graduation rates for Hispanics, Los Alamitos Unified ranked highest in the county, ahead of Irvine (94.8 percent), Brea-Olinda Unified (94.3 percent) and Tustin Unified (91.5 percent).