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Santa Monica High School Among Top-900 Schools in Country

Photo: Sam Catanzaro.

SAMOHI ranked 829 out of over 18,000 total schools

By Staff Writer

Santa Monica High School is among the top 900 schools in the country, according to a recent report.

On May 6, the Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District announced that U.S. News and World Report ranked Malibu and Santa Monica high schools in the top six percent out of nearly 18,000 public schools in the nation and in the top 180 schools in California. Malibu High School ranked 176 in the state and Santa Monica High School ranked 108. 

U.S. News rankings are determined by college readiness scores, based on demographics, state test scores and college prep exams. U.S. News released its 2022 Best High Schools list this week ranking Malibu High 1,170 and Samohi, 829. 

“This recognition by a highly respected publication illustrates that our stellar teachers, staff and leaders are truly supporting and preparing our students for college and career,” SMMUSD Superintendent Dr. Ben Drati said. “We congratulate each school site team and our students for their hard work, dedication and forward-thinking.” 

To create the rankings, U.S. News focused on six factors: college readiness, reading and math proficiency, reading and math performance, underserved student performance, college curriculum breadth and graduation rates. 

The data used is from the 2019-20 academic school year, which covers the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, where distance learning was implemented in March 2020 for the remainder of the school year. In 2021, (reflecting the 2018-19 year) Malibu ranked 146 in the state and 999 in the country and Samohi ranked 98 in the state and 708 in the nation. 

Olympic High School is not included in this ranking, however, has been previously awarded the prestigious Model Continuation High School award in California.

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