Desert Hills Elementary

Desert Hills Elementary is a PK-5 school in the Clint Independent School District (Isd) in El Paso, TX, serving 928 students in a community where over 81% of students qualify for free or reduced lunch.

Desert Hills is a school on a strong upward trajectory, climbing from a 1-star rating to a 3-star rating over the past five years. Its most impressive strength is its exceptional effectiveness with students from low-income backgrounds, ranking in the 71st percentile statewide for this group—far exceeding its overall rank. The school also shines with its bilingual program, as students consistently outperform district and state averages on Spanish-language STAAR exams. For example, 5th-grade math proficiency in Spanish was 45.71%, compared to just 22.32% statewide. This success stands out when compared to nearby schools in the same district, like Carroll T Welch Elementary and Frank Macias Elementary, which have remained in lower percentiles. However, Desert Hills still lags behind top-performing schools in the neighboring Socorro Independent School District (Isd), such as Horizon Heights Elementary (91st percentile) and John Drugan School (85th percentile), which achieve better results with less funding per student.

Despite its progress, Desert Hills has critical areas to address. Science scores are alarmingly low, with only 9.09% of 5th graders proficient on the English STAAR test in 2024-2025, compared to the state average of 29.57%. The school also struggles with consistency for its Special Education students, who ranked in the 34th percentile in 2025-2026 after a brief improvement the prior year. For parents, Desert Hills offers a dedicated, improving environment with a standout bilingual program and a proven ability to support students from low-income backgrounds, but it needs to urgently strengthen its science instruction and special education services to close the gap with higher-performing neighbors.