Summary:
There is one elementary school in Fountain Hills Unified District: McDowell Mountain Elementary School, serving Pre-K–5 and enrolling 382 students. There are no other listed local elementary schools to compare, so state results are the main benchmark. In 2025–26, the school’s all-grade proficiency was 29% in English Language Arts (ELA) versus 41% statewide, and 20% in math versus 33% statewide. The most important finding for families is that the school’s results were below the state in both core subjects, by 12 percentage points in ELA and 13 points in math.
There is no meaningful local top-versus-bottom distinction: McDowell Mountain Elementary School is both the highest- and lowest-ranked school in this one-school list. Its largest reported grade-level gaps were in fourth grade: ELA proficiency was 31% versus 47% statewide, and math was 24% versus 40%—16 points lower in each subject. Third-grade ELA was 31% versus 39%, while fifth-grade ELA was 25% versus 38%. A separate, more positive result came in fifth-grade science in 2024–25: 38% proficiency, 4 points above the state’s 34%. The school and district figures match in the reported grade-level ELA results and fourth-grade math, though the school’s all-grade results are lower than the district’s.
SchoolDigger’s statewide percentile ranking fell after a small rise: it moved from 34 in 2023–24 to 36 in 2024–25, then to 17 in 2025–26, a 19-point drop from the preceding year. Its statewide rank changed from 606 of 912 to 743 of 900 over the period; SchoolDigger lists it at 178 of 267 in the district and awards it 2 stars. These rankings describe relative standing, not a trend in test scores. The school’s student–teacher ratio was 11.3 in 2024–25, and reported per-student spending was $11,703 in 2021–22; a free- or reduced-price-lunch rate was not available. Because the list has only one school, it cannot show how local schools differ or establish a relationship between these school characteristics and achievement.
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