Seaside High School Persistently Underachieving - Central Coast News KION/KCBA

Seaside, CALIF- Seaside High School was one of three schools in the Monterey Peninsula Unified School District that was named as persistently underachieving but it's just one of two Central Coast High Schools on the list.

"The schools that are on the list are schools that we have been working with for the past three or four years they are schools that have been program improvement or state sanctions schools, so this is not new information to the district," said Associate Superintendent Kari Yeater.

About 1,000 students go to Seaside High School and it's one of the most diverse schools on the Central Coast. The district said the diversity is a blessing and a curse, "It's a challenge to make sure we meet the needs of our student sub groups. I think in taking a look at seaside it's just really making sure we're offering the rigorous curriculum and the support structures they need so they can graduate and go on to college," said Yeater.

87% percent of the students graduate from Seaside High. But only 30% go on to a four year college, "What our goal is to make sure every one of our students graduates on time and that they have the option to go to college because they took the right courses, they have the GPA and they have the opportunity," said Yeater.

Additional teacher training, new curriculum and more challenging college prep courses are on the agenda for Seaside, and Yeater said it's possible 50%of graduates will attend a 4 year college by 2015, "With a lot of hard work and strategies that we know work in other school districts that have been able to do this I think that its very possible in the next year or two to see that kind of progress," said Yeater.