Middle Schools in Paradise Valley Unified District

Six middle schools in Paradise Valley Unified District serve grades 5–8, with results that vary widely across the area. The six-school averages are 50% in ELA and 41% in math, above state averages of 41% and 33%, but below district averages of 54% and 50%; grade-8 science averages 38%, versus 30% statewide and 39% districtwide. The most important distinction is the large, consistent gap between the strongest results and Greenway Middle School: school results span 43 percentage points in ELA, 52 in math, and 35 in science.

Explorer Middle School leads math at 64%, ties for the ELA lead at 64%, and scores 45% in science; SchoolDigger ranks it 45th of 536 statewide, in the 92nd percentile, with five stars. Mountain Trail Middle School shares the ELA lead and tops science at 47%, while Desert Shadows Middle School posts 61% in ELA, 54% in math, and 45% in science. Both are above state results in ELA and math; SchoolDigger gives Mountain Trail four stars and Desert Shadows four stars. Greenway is lowest in all three measures—21% ELA, 12% math, and 12% science—and falls below the state in each; SchoolDigger ranks it 498th of 536, in the 7th percentile, with no stars.

SchoolDigger’s average percentile for these schools rose from 60 in 2023–24 to 64 in 2025–26, though it barely changed from 64.2 to 64.3 between the last two years reported; Sunrise was an exception, dropping from the 77th to the 71st percentile. Class size alone does not distinguish the top performers: student-teacher ratios range from 14.4 at Shea Middle School to 21.4 at Mountain Trail, and Shea is below the state in ELA and math despite the lowest ratio. Free/reduced-lunch figures are unavailable, and the one-year ELA and math results cannot show whether proficiency gaps are changing over time.