Vista (Alternative) School: Full Guide

Location: San Dimas, CA

Are you a student or parent at Vista (Alternative) School? Want to understand how to get the most out of high school?

We've written the best guide to Vista Alternative available. Here we'll cover:

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

Let's get started!

Basic Information

Vista (Alternative) School is a public school, supporting grades 0 to 12 . It's located in San Dimas, CA in Los Angeles County.

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

Contact Information

Mailing address:

Vista (Alternative) School
115 W. Allen Ave.
San Dimas, CA 91773-1473

Phone number: 9099718242

Principal: Christine Black
Email the principal: [email protected]

Student Demographics

Student Enrollment

The total enrollment at Vista (Alternative) School is 39 students, making it a small high school, in the bottom 25% of all California high schools by size.

With at most a few dozen students in your class, you'll get to know most other Vista Alternative students well. But the small student body size may mean that you won't get access to the full range of activities and classes that other high schools offer.

If you find that your interests aren't well served by Vista Alternative, consider transferring to a larger high school if possible, or find ways to supplement your interests in your community or on the Internet.

Growth in Student Body Size

Is Vista (Alternative) School growing or shrinking? This will help you see trends in where the school is headed.

From our calculations, the enrollment at Vista Alternative has increased 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	2	0	2
10^th grade	22	8	30
11^th grade	5	1	6
12^th grade	0	1	1

As you can see in the table above, the freshman class is 1 students larger than the senior class. This suggests that the school is growing in size and taking on more students.

There are a few reasons this could be happening. The city of San Dimas could be growing in population, thus sending more students into Vista Alternative. Alternatively, Vista Alternative could be relaxing its student policies and taking in more students.

Gender Split

Are there more boys or girls at Vista (Alternative) School?

From our statistics, Vista Alternative has a 75:25 split between male and female students in the high school grades.

There is a large male majority at Vista Alternative, and much more than you would expect from the general population in Los Angeles County. As a result, it'll feel like there are a lot more girls than boys in your classes.

Sometimes this imbalance can result from random chance and may not suggest anything about Vista Alternative. In other cases, the school might preferentially select for males. For example, in our data we find that continuation high schools unfortunately seem to be male-dominated. In yet other cases, other neighboring schools might attract female students, drawing them away from Vista Alternative.

If the male majority is concerning to you, we suggest contacting Vista Alternative administration and asking if they have any thoughts about why there's a gender imbalance. Their phone number is 9099718242.

Ethnicity Breakdown

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

From our statistics, Vista Alternative has a somewhat homogenous student body, with the majority of students identifying as one ethnicity, but not representing over 70% of the student body. Most schools in California fit this profile, so Vista Alternative isn't out of the ordinary. Most students attending class with you will be of the predominant ethnicity, but there will be meaningful diversity from other races.

The majority of students at Vista Alternative are Hispanic. In California, Hispanic students make up the majority of all students at 51.5%, and are thus the most common ethnicity. Predominantly Hispanic schools are the most common type of homogenous school, and Vista Alternative fits within this category.

	Percentage	Number
American Indian/Alaska Native	0.0%	0
Asian	0.0%	0
Hispanic	53.8%	21
Black	23.0%	9
White	20.5%	8
Hawaiian Native/Pacific Islander	0.0%	0
Two or more races	2.5%	1

High schools usually reflect the population in the surrounding area, so the ethnicities of students likely resembles those of San Dimas. 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 Vista Alternative Families

What are the family incomes of students at Vista (Alternative) 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 Vista Alternative, 5.1% of students qualify for reduced-price lunches, and 71.7% qualify for free lunches.

This means Vista Alternative has a high percentage of students at or near poverty. Almost a third of all schools in California show this level of poverty, and by National Center for Education Statistics standards, Vista Alternative can be classified as a high poverty school. The income level of families in San Dimas is thus likely to be low.

	Number	Percent
Reduced-price lunches	2	5.1%
Free lunches	28	71.7%
Do not qualify for reduced-price or free lunches	9	23.0%

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

Unfortunately, schools in areas of lower income levels are likely to be more poorly funded. As a result, they might feature less advanced coursework like AP/IB classes, and you may not have a full range of sports and extracurriculars to draw from. Because Vista Alternative is an especially high poverty-level school, it might not have the resources you need to meet your full potential.

You definitely don't have control over the city, the school, or other families, but you can structure your own learning to be more productive. If you'd like to open yourself to more opportunities, you can look into whether it's possible to transfer to a nearby school with higher income levels.

If not, don't be alarmed - it's possible that Vista Alternative has all that you need for your ambition. And you can definitely be proactive about learning outside of your school, looking to your community or to the Internet to find more resources.

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School Safety

How safe is Vista (Alternative) 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 Vista Alternative: 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 Vista Alternative students at risk.

In the school year of 2011-2012, there were 39 referrals to law enforcement (27 male, 12 female), and 0 school-related arrests. This is out of a total enrollment of 104 students.

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

This means that 37.5 Vista Alternative has major safety issues. For every 100 students, there were 37.5 law-enforcement related actions. This is a very high number that puts Vista Alternative in the top 10% of schools with disciplinary actions.

With this record, is Vista (Alternative) School significantly different from other schools in the area? It could be that Vista Alternative 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:

Bonita Unified School District Safety

School Name	Total Referred	Enrollment
Bonita High	114	1985
Chaparral High (continuation)	31	122
San Dimas High	102	1293

Sports Teams

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!

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