Spotlight Schools Newsletter: June 2025
🎓 New tools to track graduates' progress // 👟 Debate over transgender athletes // Superintendents Wanted // 🍎 Ranking of Districts with the 'Best Teachers'
THE LATEST ON TK-12 EDUCATION IN ORANGE COUNTY
In this newsletter:
- 🎓 Congratulations to the Class of 2025! Plus, new tools that track how California students fared after leaving high school.
- 👩‍🎓👨🏾‍🎓👨‍🎓 Why do some high schools have ten or more valedictorians?
- đź‘€ The Orange County School districts searching for superintendents
- đź‘ź How the debate over transgender student-athletes is playing out in some parts of Orange County
- 🍎 Meet Orange County's 2026 Teachers of the Year! (Plus, a new ranking of school districts with the "best teachers")
- 🚦See which local district broke a Guinness World Record!
🤓 Are you on social media? So is Spotlight Schools! Check us out on on Instagram, X, and Facebook. Don't forget to visit SpotlightSchools.com.
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Yours in knowledge,
Jeannette Andruss, Co-founder of Spotlight Schools
🎓 Congratulations to O.C.'s Class of 2025!
Plus, new tools can help families track how local high school graduates fared.
Timmy Tran is one of the thousands of seniors in Orange County preparing for a major milestone – his graduation from high school.
Like many others, the student at Westminster High School in the Huntington Beach Union High School District is set to don his cap and gown and accept his diploma in the coming days. And the future is looking bright for him.
Timmy was accepted to 17 universities and waitlisted at 13 others. He has decided to attend Harvard University in the fall. “It’s been unbelievable,” Timmy said, a giant smile across his face. “I could never imagine that I could get this far, especially in the college admissions process.” (Read more about Timmy at SpotlightSchools.com and learn how the QuestBridge College Prep Scholars program helped him.)
Other local school districts are also celebrating what's next for many members of the class of 2025. At Los Alamitos High School in the Los Alamitos Unified School District, the Instagram account LosAlDecisions2025 shared the plans of more than 50 LAHS seniors. The account includes former Spotlight Schools Editorial Intern Bella Kim, who is headed to Stanford University to study journalism and communications. (Brava, Bella! đź‘Ź )
The exterior of the gymnasium at LAHS is also a window into students' next step in their educational journeys. The wall is plastered with posters listing where many of the more than 700 members of the class of 2025 are headed after graduation. More than 100 plan to attend a California State University and 70 will study at a University of California campus.
The exterior wall of the gymnasium at Los Alamitos High School has posters listing where many of the more than 700 members of the class of 2025 are headed after graduation. (Photos: Jeannette Andruss)
The Laguna Beach Unified School District, which also only has one high school, is featuring its seniors on the Laguna Beach High School's counseling Instagram account.
The Garden Grove Unified School District is also publicizing its students' plans, including members of the Garden Grove High School class of 2025, pictured below. "More than 110 [Garden Grove High School] scholars headed to CSU and UC campuses in the fall," the district wrote in an Instagram post.
New Tools Tracking CA High School Graduates' Progress
Tracking what students in your district are doing post-graduation is exciting and can also be useful for families with children still progressing to 12th grade. Spotlight Schools has found some tools/resources that can provide information about how students from your district have fared after earning a diploma.
California's Cradle-to-Career (C2C) Student Pathways Dashboard
A 90-second tutorial shows users how to access new information about California high school students and their pathways to and through college.
California recently launched its Cradle-to-Career Student Pathways Dashboard. The dashboard shows data about students that graduated from public high schools in the state in 2014-15 and tracked their progress through California's public colleges and universities through 2022-23. It does not currently track students that graduated from a private high school or students that attended a private college or a college outside of California.
You can search for your specific public high school district to see information presented in six charts that show:
- Who enrolls in college;
- How students navigated to and through community college, CSU, or UC campuses;
- How many students worked while enrolled in college and what they earned;
- Once students enrolled in college, how long it took them to graduate;
- The types of degrees students earned;
- How much money students earned after graduating.
For instance, a search for Los Alamitos Unified shows that 36% of the students that graduated in 2014-15 from LAHS completed a Bachelor's degree at a California college or university by 2023. The LAHS graduates* that obtained their Bachelor's in 2018-19 were earning a median wage of $74,759 in 2023, according to the dashboard. (*This represents students that attended a 4-year-university and did not transfer from a community or 2-year-college.)
The dashboard is still in its early phases and more information is expected to be added in future iterations and expansions. Find out more here.
UC Admission Rates & Earnings Related to College Degrees
Another helpful resource comes from the San Francisco Chronicle, which offers an extensive interactive guide on public colleges and universities in California (Heads-up: There is a paywall to gain access.) Tools allow you to search for your high school's acceptance rate to all UC and CSU campuses. For the UCs, it covers all public and private high schools that had 100+ applicants to the nine campuses during the 2022-23 to 2024-25 school years. It is based on detailed admissions data published by the UC system.
A screenshot below shows how the Orange County School of the Arts, the public charter school in Santa Ana, had the highest acceptance rate to UCLA (18%) of all high schools in O.C. For UC Berkeley, Valley High School in the Santa Ana Unified School District had a 23% acceptance rate. That equates to 34 students admitted out of the 145 that applied. University High in the Irvine Unified School District had a 14% acceptance rate meaning 109 students out of the 760 that applied were accepted.
Another tool from the San Francisco Chronicle is one that measures earnings of CSU and UC grads based on their majors. Check out the full guide at SFChronicle.com.
Why Do Some O.C. High Schools Have Ten or More Valedictorians?
After hours of commemorating all of Los Alamitos High School’s exceptional students on May 22 during Senior Awards Night, students and families anticipated the final award of the evening – the naming of the class of 2025 valedictorian.
However, at LAHS, the announcement didn’t end with one name. For this year’s senior class, 10 students were honored with the title out of a class of more than 700.
The title “valedictorian” has conventionally equated to the singular student ranked at the top of each senior class with the highest academic achievement or best grade-point average (GPA). But many campuses in Orange County have different approaches to honoring top scholars. Fifteen years ago, LAHS modernized its tradition and chose 10 students to be “valedictorians.”
The topic of valedictorians was once a heated one at Los Alamitos High School. Following student and parental arguments of resentment after failing to win the title in the past, administrators decided to take a different approach to the coveted role: choosing multiple people for the honor.
“There was a decision made at that time where (administrators) felt at our school, (choosing one student) just did not represent truly what a valedictorian was,” LAHS Principal Christiana Kraus said. “(The students chosen) are all equitable and equal. It was a decision made well over a decade ago, and it's been one that's been very consistent on our campus.”
Los Alamitos Unified isn't the only district to expand the pool of valedictorians. The Capistrano Unified School District, Orange County’s largest, has a policy that every graduating senior “with cumulative grade-point averages of 4.0 or higher" is deemed a valedictorian. The CUSD’s class of 2025 has more than 1,180 valedictorians.
Read the whole story on SpotlightSchools.com.
This story was written and reported by LAHS student Jaya Eapen and Jeannette Andruss.
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O.C. and the Debate over Transgender Student-Athletes
Some Orange County school board members are backing the Trump administration's efforts against California's law that allows trans athletes to compete in girls' high school sports.
The debate over transgender student-athletes competing in girls’ high school sports in California has exploded in the last few weeks.
It’s been heightened to the national level by a Jurupa Valley Unified School District transgender student’s success in the girls’ track and field state championships last weekend and President Donald Trump’s threat to withhold federal funding from California for allowing it.
California and the California Interscholastic Federation, which oversees high school athletics, allow students to participate in sex-segregated sports that align with their gender identity based on a law enacted in 2014.
Here in Orange County, some local school board members are echoing Trump's arguments in their public opposition to California's law. Visit SpotlightSchools.com to read our quick overview of how the Placentia-Yorba Linda Unified School District and Capistrano Unified School District have publicly weighed in on the debate.
Related reading:
- Transgender student-athlete wins, shares CIF girls track and field titles // EdSource (Hear from winning student-athletes via the San Francisco Chronicle)
- O.C. athlete briefly poses on 1st place-podium after finishing 2nd to transgender competitor in CIF prelims // Fox News
- Santa Ana USD School Board lambasts colleague for transgender remarks // Voice of OC
- Los Alamitos High School transgender prom queen nominee attacked online // Griffin Gazette
Searching for Superintendents
As the school year comes to a close, several local school districts are searching for new leadership to be in place by the start of the 2025-26 school year.
This week, the Santa Ana Unified School District held meetings with the public to gather input as it searches for a new superintendent. After five years in the role, Jerry Almendarez announced he would retire at the end of July. The search comes as the district deals with declining enrollment and a $154 million budget deficit, which led to the layoffs of more than 260 district employees last month.
The Placentia-Yorba Linda Unified School District has been without a permanent superintendent since Alex Cherniss, Ed.D., and several of his colleagues were placed on administrative leave by the school board in December 2024. The district recently hosted two Town Hall Meetings as part of its search for a replacement. In April, Dr. Cherniss was hired as the superintendent of the Beverly Hills Unified School District.
The Laguna Beach Unified School District Board of Education is poised to appoint Jason Glass, Ed.D., as superintendent at its June 9 meeting. Dr. Glass most recently served as vice president for teaching and learning at Western Michigan University, reports The L.A. Times. Dr. Glass will be appointed to a four-year team with an annual salary of $435,000, according to the agenda. In November 2024, the board, led by outgoing President Jan Vickers, parted ways with Jason Viloria, Ed.D., who had been superintendent since 2016.
Other local school districts also hired new leadership this academic year. Following the successful recall of two conservative trustees in March 2024 and big changes to the board makeup in the November election, the Orange Unified School District Board of Education selected Rachel Monárrez, Ph.D., as its superintendent in April. Also in April, The Irvine Unified School District named longtime IUSD educator Cassie Parham as its next leader. Parham's hiring follows the retirement of Terry Walker in January after leading IUSD for 14 years. In February, the Ocean View School District named Julianne Hoefer, Ph.D., as its superintendent.
Orange County's 2026 Teachers of the Year
You’re an Orange County Teacher of the Year!
That is the news six educators received on May 1 in surprise announcements inside their classrooms with students, family, colleagues, and others cheering them on.
The Orange County Department of Education (OCDE) administers the O.C. Teacher of the Year program. Orange County Superintendent of Schools Stefan Bean, Ed.D., presented the awards to this year’s winners. They were selected from more than 60 applicants among the region's 28 public school districts and community colleges from a pool of an estimated 20,000 teachers.
Each honoree was given a lofty apple-topped trophy and a goodie bag from sponsor SchoolsFirst Federal Credit Union. In November, the six educators will also be honored during a ceremony at the Disneyland Hotel where they will receive $25,000 from the Orange County Teachers of the Year Award Foundation. The five TK-12 teachers can now also compete to become a 2026 California Teacher of the Year.
Visit SpotlightSchools.com to read about each exemplary educator.
🏆 Ranking: Districts with the 'Best Teachers'
Speaking of great teachers, Niche is out with a new list of districts with the best teachers in California. The rankings are based on "student and parent ratings of teachers, teacher salaries, teacher absenteeism, teacher tenure, student-teacher ratio, and the Niche Academics Grade for the district," according to Patch. (Read more on how the rankings were determined here.)
Spotlight Schools has compiled Niche's top-ranked districts with the best teachers in Orange County. The number in the parentheses represents how the local districts ranked among the 750 districts across California, according to the report.
- Laguna Beach Unified School District (No. 25)
- Irvine Unified School District (No. 37)
- Capistrano Unified School District (No. 41)
- Placentia-Yorba Linda Unified School District (No. 42)
- Los Alamitos Unified School District (No. 49)
- Garden Grove Unified School District (No. 58)
- Fullerton Joint Union High School District (No. 67)
- Tustin Unified School District (No. 80)
- Newport-Mesa Unified School District (No. 90)
- Brea-Olinda Unified School District (No. 91)
- Huntington Beach Union High School District (No. 93)
- Fullerton Elementary School District (No. 135)
- Cypress Elementary School District (No. 155)
Read more about these rankings at Niche and Patch.
More news from Spotlight Schools:
Emma Hirotsu - Student Contributor
Other Stories We're Reading
Note: some links may have a paywall or require a subscription to read.
- Schedule changes at Los Alamitos Unified Middle Schools planned for 2025-26 school year // Griffin Gazette
- The two candidates in the June 10 special election for a Newport-Mesa school board seat talk priorities // The O.C. Register
- Family of Fullerton special needs student taken from school to hospital without their knowledge share story // Fullerton Observer
- Huntington Beach City Council moves to probe Ocean View School Board // Voice of OC
- Santa Ana Unified lays off 262 employees // The L.A. Times
- O.C. seniors taking advantage Career Technical Education // The O.C. Register
- Irvine Unified rolls out affordable housing program for homeless students // Voice of OC
- Fullerton School District junior high school students complete second tiny home to support families in need // OCDE Newsroom
- Is it sex education or porn? Voters in Huntington Beach to weigh in on battle over library books in June 10 special election // CalMatters
- Future of California’s ethnic studies graduation requirement remains uncertain following May budget revision // OCDE Newsroom
- Capistrano Unified breaks ground on new school // The O.C. Register
- Sowers Middle School in Huntington Beach celebrates new gymnasium and upgrades // The L.A. Times
🚦 O.C. School District Sets World Record
Video from the Anaheim Elementary School District shows how students and families set a new Guinness World Record.
The Anaheim Elementary School District recently made history. The district's students, families, staff, and community members came out to play Red Light, Green Light and set a new Guinness World Record for participation in the process.
The previous record was set by 1,415 people. AESD had 1,423 people show up, beating the old record by eight participants!
The effort took place May 21 at Yorba Regional Park and involved students from the district's 23 schools. It was organized through the district's Anaheim Elementary Succeeds! expanded learning program in conjunction with CF Fitness.
A representative from Guinness was on hand to certify the results.
Wondering how you can set a new world record with your students? Check out the Guinness World Records website for information and inspiration!
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