El Camino Real Charter High School (also known locally as "ECR" or "Elco") is an independent charter secondary school located in the Woodland Hills district of the San Fernando Valley region of the city of Los Angeles, California, United States. The school, founded in 1969, was designed to emulate a small college campus, with a large central "quad" and an open campus policy.
ECR serves portions of Woodland Hills and West Hills and also maintains a sizable "traveling" student population from other areas of the district.
ECR's Academic Performance Index was 832 out of 1,000 in 2012.
On March 31, 2009, El Camino Real High School became a California Distinguished School. In December 2010, the teachers and staff at the school voted for it to become a charter school. This change took effect in the fall of 2011.
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Demographics
In 1998, the school had 3,315 students enrolled. 5% were African American, 1% American Indian, 15% Asian, 42% White, 29% Latino, 6% two or more races, 5% English learners, 7% special-education students, 43% gifted and talented, 22% economically disadvantaged, and 15% students moving in and out of this school during the year. Over 1,000 of them, as of 1998, were classified as "gifted and talented". Several area parents disliked the LAUSD magnet program points admission system, so they chose to instead move to the ECR attendance zone and enroll their gifted-classified children there.
As of 1998, 70% of ECR graduates went on to colleges and universities, compared to 52% overall for LAUSD.
Academic competitions
Academic Decathlon team
The school's Academic Decathlon team won national titles in 1998, 2001, 2004, 2005, 2007, 2010, 2014, 2018, 2023, 2024, and 2025.
Junior Engineering Technical Society
The Junior Engineering Technical Society (JETS) promoted interest in engineering, science, math and technology in high school students and provides them with real-world engineering teamwork and problem-solving experiences. The team participates in the TEAMS (Test of Engineering Aptitude, Mathematics, and Science) Competition that occurs annually in March and is hosted and sponsored by the Viterbi School of Engineering at the University of Southern California (USC). The Technology Student Association acquired TEAMS from JETS in 2011.
In 2006, the ECR JETS Team won second place at the Southern California Regional Varsity Competition, losing first place to Beverly Hills High School by one point.
In 2007, the ECR JETS Team again won second place at the Southern California Regional Varsity Competition, increasing their score significantly by 7 points but once again losing first place to Beverly Hills High School by only one point.
In 2008, the ECR JETS Team won first place at the Southern California Regional Varsity Competition, defeating rival Beverly Hills High School. El Camino Real also placed second in the state of California, and advanced to the nationals.
In 2009, the ECR JETS Team tied second place with another high school at their division. However, the team only received the trophy of the third place because of a random tiebreaker.
In 2010, the ECR JETS Team placed first in Regionals and progressed to Nationals.
Additionally, El Camino's NJROTC program was ranked nationally in 2024.