Original Research by School Decision on Thousand Oaks High
Thousand Oaks High serves grades nine through twelve in a suburban setting about halfway between Los Angeles and Santa Barbara. The school enrolls students from across Thousand Oaks and its surrounding communities in Ventura County. Enrollment is distributed evenly across the four grades, with a student body that is roughly evenly split between white and Hispanic students, followed by smaller shares of Asian, multiracial, and other backgrounds. About one-fifth of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, placing the school in a community with moderate economic diversity.
State test results for the 2024-25 school year show that about three-fifths of students met proficiency in English language arts, but fewer than two-fifths met proficiency in mathematics, and just over one-third met proficiency in science. The gap between reading and math is substantial, a pattern that exists in many schools and one a parent may want to discuss with the school directly to understand the factors behind it and what supports exist. The data available covers only one year, so it is not possible to gauge whether these results reflect recent trends or longer-term patterns.
Thousand Oaks High is a regular public school, not a charter or magnet. The district, Conejo Valley Unified, is currently implementing new graduation requirements: beginning with students in the class of 2030, a one-semester ethnic studies course is now required for a diploma. The district also offers the ethnic studies course to earlier cohorts on a voluntary basis, having introduced it in the 2025-2026 school year.
The district and the schools within it have been active in two substantial policy conversations. In 2023, Conejo Valley Unified joined a multistate lawsuit against major social media platforms, naming Meta, Instagram, Snapchat, and TikTok, alleging harm to student mental health. That same year and into 2025, a lawsuit filed by parents through a nonprofit group called PERK has contested certain health and sex education materials, alleging noncompliance with California law on age-appropriateness and parental notification. That litigation has moved through appellate proceedings and remains unresolved, making curriculum content and parental engagement around sensitive topics an active area of district concern.
Thousand Oaks itself is a planned suburban community built largely for single-family homes and oriented to car travel rather than walking. The town sits in a landscape of oak woodlands and rolling hills and is known for extensive parks and open space managed by the Conejo Recreation and Park District. The largest employer is Amgen, the biopharmaceutical company headquartered there, alongside California Lutheran University, a regional hospital, and manufacturing and technology firms. Civic life centers on the Thousand Oaks Civic Arts Plaza, where the city is building out a new downtown with mixed-use housing and walkable retail.
The housing market in the zip code is affluent. Home values are substantially above California's median and well above the national average. Monthly rent is also elevated relative to median household income, placing rental affordability at just above half of gross monthly income, a tight ratio. Homeownership affordability, measured by the ratio of median home price to median household income, is high as well. The area is not car-optional; transit is limited to local bus routes serving dispersed destinations rather than a connected network.
The school district is in the midst of a demographic and development shift. Thousand Oaks has long been a slow-growth community, but the city is now adding multifamily housing to meet state-mandated regional housing targets. Several mixed-use and rental projects are under development or recently approved across the city. That growth trajectory and the accompanying demographic change may affect the composition and size of Thousand Oaks High over time, something a family considering the area may want to monitor as development proceeds.
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