For decades, Oxford Academy has been characterized as a selective magnet school with a tight-knit student population. Starting from 1998, the year that Oxford was opened, traditionally 25 students are admitted each year per eight of the boundary Anaheim Union School District (AUHSD) areas. However, in 2020, the school decided to allot an extra 35 spots for students outside of AUHSD. Looking to increase the acceptance rate for students outside of AUHSD, Oxford plans to accept around 70 students starting the 2025-2026 school year.
Currently, Oxford has 1,289 students across grades 7-12; with this change, the school now expects around 210 additional students on top of the standard acceptances, over the next 6 years.
“It was granted to the admin before me to start allowing outside the district students to start applying. So they were allotted 35 spots, while all of the district boundary areas, each 8 of them are allotted 25 each,” Principal, Amber Houston said. “So, they said, why don’t we start allowing other kids to come in to have an opportunity to test to be in Oxford? It was just a vision of letting other kids have this experience.”
Allowing 35 additional students who reside outside of AUHSD boundaries to attend Oxford Academy will also increase the overall funding the district receives, in light of struggling Average Daily Attendance (ADA) numbers since the pandemic. California schools receive state funding through ADA, reliant on the average volume of students in class each day.
“The additional 35 students we just got granted was to kind of help the entire district as a whole gain some additional ADA and combat the fact that our district is in declining enrollment. So, allowing more kids from outside our area to come here helps offset some of that district-wide,” said Principal Houston.
While an increase in class size raises concerns from the student body about the supply of physical resources, given Oxford’s previous lack of need for larger classrooms, the school began preparing for this change in the summer of 2024.
“We got all of those additional portables a year and a half ago, and that was in preparation to possibly expand, so it hasn’t affected our classroom sizes or resources in that way,” said Mrs. Houston.
Additionally, the school is planning on hiring three more teachers over the next six years.
Despite the adjustments being made to accommodate a larger student body, international students won’t see any changes in their experience. While Oxford doesn’t receive many F-1 visa students — which are students who travel to the United States to study full-time through a non-immigrant visa, due to the rigorous curriculum, the few that do attend Oxford aren’t going to be affected by this change as that program is completely separated from district enrollment and the changes in it.
Oxford’s rising enrollment, while it does change the original environment of the school, also brings forth a new experience that the school is ready to embrace.
