Franklin High School: Full Guide

Location: Elk Grove, CA

Are you a student or parent at Franklin High School? Want to understand how to get the most out of high school?

We've written the best guide to Franklin High available. Here we'll cover:

Breakdowns of student ethnicity, gender, and family income
How safe Franklin High is to attend
SAT/ACT/AP scores earned by Franklin High students
Which AP/IB classes you can take at Franklin High
Every sports team you can join at Franklin High

Let's get started!

Basic Information

Franklin High School is a public school, supporting grades 9 to 12 . It's located in Elk Grove, CA in Sacramento County.

Based on its location, Franklin High is classified as a school in a large suburb. Here's the location on a map:

Contact Information

Mailing address:

Franklin High School
6400 Whitelock Pkwy.
Elk Grove, CA 95757

Phone number: 9167148150

Franklin High School homepage: https://fhs.schoolloop.com/

Principal: Chantelle Albiani
Email the principal: [email protected]

Student Demographics

Student Enrollment

The total enrollment at Franklin High School is 2729 students, making it a very large high school, in the top 10% of all California high schools by size.

Wow! Attending Franklin High might feel like attending a college. You'll be surrounded by a large group of students (over 500 per class) and have more options for activities and clubs to join, which can be exciting.

On the other hand, you may also find that resources like counseling are spread thin across so many students. Make sure that you can get enough teacher and counselor attention to succeed at Franklin High, which may require being proactive.

Growth in Student Body Size

Is Franklin High School growing or shrinking? This will help you see trends in where the school is headed.

From our calculations, the enrollment at Franklin High has decreased over the past few years. We calculate this by comparing enrollment in grades 9 to 12.

	Male Students	Female Students	All Students
9^th grade	307	325	632
10^th grade	400	350	750
11^th grade	355	329	684
12^th grade	339	324	663

As you can see in the table above, the senior class is 31 students larger than the freshman class. This suggests that Franklin High is shrinking in size and taking on fewer students.

There are a few reasons this can happen. The population of Elk Grove could be decreasing, thus sending fewer students into Franklin High. Alternatively, other schools (like charter or private schools) might be appearing, drawing students away.

Gender Split

Are there more boys or girls at Franklin High School?

From our statistics, Franklin High has a 52:48 split between male and female students in the high school grades.

Franklin High has a balanced male-female ratio that's largely representative of the general population in Sacramento County. Since the student body is roughly half and half, it should feel like there are equal numbers of boys and girls in your classes.

This usually means that Franklin High doesn't strongly select for either males or females, unlike other schools that have a large majority of males or females.

Ethnicity Breakdown

What's the racial diversity at Franklin High School? Does one ethnicity make up most of the student body, or is it fairly balanced?

From our statistics, Franklin High has a diverse student body. No single ethnicity composes more than 50% of all students, which means you'll be surrounded by a diverse set of students in class. Only a third of California schools show this much diversity.

The most common ethnicity at Franklin High is Asian. Across all of California, Asian students make up 11.5% of enrollment, but it's rare for a school to be predominantly Asian. Thus Franklin High is notable for having a particularly strong Asian presence.

	Percentage	Number
American Indian/Alaska Native	0.3%	10
Asian	37.5%	1025
Hispanic	19.7%	540
Black	14.0%	384
White	20.8%	568
Hawaiian Native/Pacific Islander	1.2%	35
Two or more races	6.1%	167

High schools usually reflect the population in the surrounding area, so the ethnicities of students likely resembles those of Elk Grove. If you'd like to see how other nearby schools look in diversity, just google "[name of school] prepscholar" to find our guide to that specific school.

Income Level of Franklin High Families

What are the family incomes of students at Franklin High School? To determine this, we look at the number of students who qualify for free or reduced lunches, a classification by the US federal government.

To qualify for a reduced price meal, family income needs to be below 185% of the federal poverty guidelines. For a family of 4, this means an income of around $45,000 or below.

To qualify for a free meal, family income needs to be below 130% of the federal poverty guidelines. For a family of 4, this means an income of around $32,000 or below.

The lower the percentage of students who qualify for free or reduced price meals, the higher the income levels are likely to be.

At Franklin High, 12.3% of students qualify for reduced-price lunches, and 20.2% qualify for free lunches.

This means Franklin High has a low poverty level. The overwhelming majority of students at Franklin High don't qualify for free or reduced price lunches. Elk Grove is thus likely to be an affluent community, with quite high family incomes.

	Number	Percent
Reduced-price lunches	338	12.3%
Free lunches	552	20.2%
Do not qualify for reduced-price or free lunches	1839	67.3%

As with ethnicity, this likely reflects the surrounding community in Elk Grove and doesn't speak much about the school itself.

Because Franklin High is in the top quartile of schools by family income, it's likely to be well-funded relative to other high schools in California. This means you'll likely have access to advanced coursework like AP/IB classes and better-funded extracurriculars and sports.

It's still up to you, though, to take advantage of the resources Franklin High has to offer. If you work hard and spend your time effectively, you'll likely be well positioned to succeed in college and beyond.

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School Safety

How safe is Franklin High School to attend? Can you expect a lot of conflict as a student here?

To study this, we look at disciplinary data for two types of incidents at Franklin High: referrals to law enforcement (when incidents are reported to police), and arrests.

These are the most serious disciplinary actions available to school administration and are more severe than suspensions or expulsions. Suspensions are often discretionary and can be given just for being disruptive in class. In contrast, law enforcement referrals and arrests often indicate incidents that put the safety of other Franklin High students at risk.

In the school year of 2011-2012, there were 63 referrals to law enforcement (40 male, 23 female), and 0 school-related arrests. This is out of a total enrollment of 2815 students.

To put this into perspective, most California schools (59% of them) reported 0 law enforcement referrals and arrests.

This means that 2.2 Franklin High has minor safety issues. For every 100 students, there were just 2.2 law-enforcement related actions, but this is still higher than 75% of California schools.

With this record, is Franklin High School significantly different from other schools in the area? It could be that Franklin High has an especially bad record, or it could be that the local area shows a pattern.

Compare this school with other high schools in the same school district, using the following table:

Elk Grove Unified School District Safety

School Name	Total Referred	Enrollment
Daylor (william) High (continuation)	8	280
Elk Grove High	30	1795
Valley High	144	1552
Insights High (continuation)	0	0
Transition High (continuation)	0	0
Laguna Creek High	93	1642

Academic Performance

Now we get to a major aspect of assessing a high school: academic performance. How good of an education will you get at Franklin High School? Will you be competitive for college? Will you have access to advanced classes?

We've compiled everything we could find about Franklin High's academics here.

Graduation Rate

To start off, an important benchmark of academic achievement is graduation rate. For all students who start high school at Franklin High, the state of California wants as many students to graduate as possible, since a high school diploma can mean a big difference in getting a job.

At Franklin High, 95% (of 611) Franklin High students graduated within four years of starting high school.

Here's how this stacks up to other schools. The California state government has defined 90% as a target rate. The state average is around 80-85%.

Franklin High is in the 87th percentile of all public high schools in California for graduation rate. This is well above average. Generally, a graduation rate of above 90% is considered good and well above average, and below 75% is well below average.

Note: This data comes from a few years back, but the trends are likely to stay the same, since schools don't get significantly better or worse within a short period of time.

Standardized Testing

Next, we'll look at another major piece of high school academics: standardized testing performance for Franklin High School students. These are tests that are administered to large populations of students for comparison purposes.

Let’s start by taking a look at the data for nationally administered standardized tests.

SAT Scores

As you probably know, the SAT is a critical test used for college admissions. The higher the score you get, the better your academic performance compared to students nationwide, and the easier it is to get into top colleges.

We did in-depth research and found the average Franklin High School SAT scores.

The average composite SAT score is a 1540 out of 2400, compared to a national average of 1500. Each year, roughly 751 at Franklin High take the SAT.

This is an average SAT score, putting Franklin High School right around the national average. Because the SAT measures academic achievement, this suggests that Franklin High will offer a fairly standard high school education, neither strongly lacking or outperforming.

Note, however, that this is just an average - the top students can still exceed the average significantly. If you can rise far above your school average, you'll have a great shot at entering a strong college.

Here's a breakdown of SAT scores by section:

Average SAT Scores (2013-2014)

Source	Critical Reading	Math	Writing	Composite
Franklin High	509	533	507	1540
California	498	510	496	1504
United States	495	511	484	1490

Note that the SAT has since changed to a 1600 scale, but the trends above for your high school are likely to continue. Just use this guide to convert between the old 2400 scale and the new 1600 scale.

To learn more about SAT percentile rankings, read our guide on what SAT percentiles really mean.

How good is 1540 as an SAT score? Find out with our complete 1540 SAT score guide, including which colleges you can get into with a 1540 or any other SAT score!

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ACT Scores

In California, the ACT is less popular than the SAT. Fewer students take the ACT, and typically these students are more motivated and academically prepared for college. Therefore, it's harder to compare Franklin High School ACT scores with the rest of the country.

At Franklin High, the average ACT composite score was 23, compared to the nationwide average of 20. Each year, roughly 173 out of 2729 total students take the ACT.

This is above average performance, putting Franklin High in the top 50% of California high schools. Since the ACT tests what you learn in school, these ACT scores are a good indication that you'll get an above-average education at Franklin High.

Here are the average English, Math, Reading, and Science scores for Franklin High compared to California and the US:

Average ACT Scores

Source	English	Math	Reading	Science
Franklin High	23	24	23	22
California	21.8	22.8	22.3	21.7
United States	20.3	20.9	21.3	20.8

Scores provided are for the 2013-14 school year.

Find out more about percentile rankings and the ACT in this article.

Every individual is different. What counts as a good ACT score for you? Learn more with this article!

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Advanced Placement (AP)

Advanced Placement (AP) classes are college-level courses that are an additional academic challenge may give Franklin High School students credit for college.

Here's what we're looking for: high average AP test scores as well as high AP passing rates.

AP Scores

Every year, roughly 662 students in grades 9-12 at Franklin High take 1217 AP exams. It's important to understand how students score on the AP - earning a 3, 4, or 5 on the AP test means passing the test and often earning college credit.

The average score of all AP exams taken at Franklin High is 3.1 out of 5.

This is a solid achievement showing above average performance. The majority of students get a passing grade of 3 or above, placing them above the national average. This performance places Franklin High School in the top 25% of schools for AP tests.

Franklin High therefore has a robust AP program with classes that will help you pass the AP exam. Furthermore, a sizable number of students still earn a 4 or a 5 on their AP tests, so if you're motivated to do well, you can still get a great AP score.

We have specific data on how many students got a 1, 2, 3, 4, or 5 (out of 5) on AP exams in the chart below:

AP Test-Taking Statistics

Another way to gauge the quality of a school's AP program is to see how many AP students actually took AP exams at Franklin High School. If a lot of students enroll in AP courses but don't actually take the AP tests, it can be a sign that students don't feel adequately prepared to take the test, or the school isn't encouraging students to take the exams enough.

At Franklin High, there is a total enrollment of 873 in AP courses (a student taking more than one AP course counts more than once).

Of AP-taking students, 406 took AP tests for ALL AP courses. 198 students took AP tests for SOME AP Courses, and 267 took AP courses but took NO tests.

This is good test participation. Most students at Franklin High School are taking some or all AP exams available to them, and only a minority of students end up taking zero AP tests. This means most students feel well enough prepared to take the nationwide AP tests for their courses.

There's still some room for improvement. Franklin High could reduce the number of AP students who take zero AP exams, and encourage students to take all AP exams available to them. Some students may not feel confident that they'll pass, so they choose not to take the test. By building a better AP program Franklin High could improve their AP exam participation.

Note: The most recent data we have available is from 2012, so the statistics may have changed since then. Most likely, however, the trends are likely to continue - above average schools are likely to stay above average, and below average schools are likely to stay below average.

AP Passing Rates

For AP students at Franklin High School who take the exam, it's important to know how they do. Here we have specific data on how many students got a passing grade (a 3 or above) on all, some, or none of the AP exams that they took.

Of all AP test takers, 207 students passed every AP test they took, which is a fantastic job. 187 students passed some but not all AP exams, and 208 students didn't pass ANY AP exam they took.

This is good performance. The majority of students pass SOME or ALL of the AP tests. Only a minority of students at Franklin High School fail all the AP exams they take.

Overall, this points to a fairly strong AP program at Franklin High. Most students are able to pass at least one of the AP tests they take, which means the teaching is likely of acceptable quality, and the students are motivated to do well. However, the program isn't strong across the board. Some teachers or courses may be better than others, and students at Franklin High may be stronger at some subjects and weaker in others.

If you attend Franklin High, this means you'll have a good starting point to work from - but if you want to pass all the AP tests you take, you'll need to work hard and use good study strategies.

To find out the passing rates for specific AP courses at Franklin High School, you'll have to talk to your guidance counselor (who can then help you find that information). For instance, one AP Calculus teacher may have an above-90% passing rate, while another might only have a 50% passing rate. If you can, you'll want to take the class with the teacher who has more students get a 3 or above on the AP exam.

Find out more about the average score for each AP subject here.

State Tests

As of 2014, eleventh graders attending Franklin High School must take standardized tests in English/Language Arts and Math as part of the California Assessment of Student Performance and Progress (CAASPP). These align with the new Common Core standards and are called the "Smarter Balanced" tests.

If Franklin High students meet or exceed state standards, they're academically prepared to graduate high school and go to college. Specifically, we care about the percentage of students who meet or exceed state standards. The larger this number, the higher the preparation of students at Franklin High.

English/Language Arts

At Franklin High School, 75% of students meet or exceed state standards in English/Language Arts.

This is considered good and puts Franklin High in the top 25% of all high schools in California for English/Language Arts. Most Franklin High students pass or exceed state standards, though there is also a sizable portion of students who fail to meet state standards.

English/Language Arts Test Results (2015)

Read more about what’s measured in each ELA area score here.

Math

The other major test taken for state assessments is Math. Across the state, Math performance is generally lower than English/Language Arts performance, so it's natural for this number to be lower.

At Franklin High School, 57% of students meet or exceed state standards in Math. This is considered well below average and puts Franklin High in the bottom 25% of all high schools in California. The vast majority of Franklin High students don't meet state standards, and only a small percentage pass.

Math Test Results (2015)

Read more about what’s measured in each Math area score, go here.

Academic Offerings

In addition to the standard high school curriculum, many high schools like Franklin High School offer advanced coursework as part of the Advanced Placement (AP) or International Baccalaureate (IB) programs.

Brief Intro to AP/IB

AP and IB courses are designed at the difficulty level of college introductory classes. There are several important benefits to taking advanced coursework at Franklin High. First, taking more advanced classes shows colleges that you're committed to challenging yourself academically, and that you're one of the more advanced students at Franklin High. Taking AP/IB classes also raises your weighted GPA and makes you a stronger college applicant.

Furthermore, many colleges will accept your Franklin High AP/IB coursework as college coursework. In some cases, you'll be able to skip introductory-level classes and move to more advanced classes. In other cases, you'll be able to avoid having to take required courses and might even be able to graduate earlier than the standard 4 years. Often this will require you to pass the AP test, getting a score of 3 or above.

So what advanced courses does Franklin High School offer?

AP Courses

Franklin High School offers AP courses in 23 subjects.

This is a huge number of AP subjects, putting Franklin High School in the top 5% of California schools in AP offerings. You'll be able to choose from the most popular AP courses as well as your pick of broader interests.

The total number of AP subjects is 38, so Franklin High is missing some subjects, but these are likely the least popular subjects, like some foreign languages and the new AP Research and Seminar courses. If there are any AP courses you want to take that aren't being offered at Franklin High, ask your counselor for other options.

Of course, keep in mind that quantity doesn't automatically mean quality - it's important that the courses are taught well by effective teachers. But the strong AP program at Franklin High likely means the classes are of high quality.

The following AP courses were offered at Franklin High during 2015-2016:

Course Title
Art History
Biology
Calculus AB
Calculus BC
Chemistry
Comparative Government and Politics
English Language and Composition
English Literature and Composition
Environmental Science
French Language and Culture
Human Geography
Japanese Language and Culture
Macroeconomics
Microeconomics
Physics 1: Algebra-Based
Physics 2: Algebra-Based
Psychology
Statistics
Studio Art: 3-D Design
Studio Art: Drawing
United States Government and Politics
United States History
World History

Sports Teams

Finally, we'll cover which sports teams are available at Franklin High School. Sports are an integral part of many students' high school experiences. The more sports that are available, and the more levels supported (Frosh, JV, Varsity), the more likely you'll be able to participate in a sport at Franklin High.

By the way, the Franklin High mascot is the Wildcats. Go Wildcats!

Franklin High School fields 15 teams for girls' sports. This is a sizable number that puts Franklin High in the top 50% of California schools that offer girls' sports. You won't get the full range of sports and levels, but you'll be able to try out for a few options. If you participate in a sport that Franklin High doesn't offer, consider looking for a local non-school team that you can join.

And now for the boys: Franklin High School fields 20 teams for boys' sports. This puts Franklin High in the top 50% of California schools that offer boys' sports. You won't get every sport and level possible here, but you'll have a decent number of options. If you participate in a sport that Franklin High doesn't offer, consider looking for a local non-school team that you can join.

Boys Teams	Girls Teams
Lacrosse Var JV Fr	Lacrosse Var JV Fr
Basketball Var JV Fr	Basketball Var JV Fr
Golf Var JV Fr	Golf Var JV Fr
Tennis Var JV Fr	Tennis Var JV Fr
Football Var JV Fr
Wrestling Var JV Fr
Volleyball Var JV Fr	Volleyball Var JV Fr
Baseball Var JV Fr
	Softball Var JV Fr
Waterpolo Var JV Fr	Waterpolo Var JV Fr
Trackfield Var JV Fr	Trackfield Var JV Fr
Crosscountry Var JV Fr	Crosscountry Var JV Fr
Soccer Var JV Fr	Soccer Var JV Fr
Swimming Var JV Fr

What’s Next?

Want to get more useful information about high school classes and preparing for colleges? Our blog has a ton of articles and advice on topics ranging from coursework and GPA to letters of recommendation, extracurriculars, and much more!

Ready to bulk up your schedule and maximize your college preparedness? Read all about the Advanced Placement and International Baccalaureate programs.

Not quite in high school yet, but eager to get started? We've also got information for younger students interested in advanced learning opportunities, both in and out of school.

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