Summary:
Paradise Valley Unified District has five high schools, all serving grades 7–12, with 8,737 students total—about 1,747 per school. Across the schools, average proficiency is 53% in all-grades ELA and 47% in math, compared with state averages of 41% and 33%; the average 11th-grade science result is 26%, versus 19% statewide. The most important distinction is that North Canyon is consistently far below its four local peers: its ELA, math and 11th-grade science results trail their averages by 28, 36 and 23 percentage points.
The strongest school depends on the subject: Pinnacle leads in math, while Shadow Mountain leads in ELA. Pinnacle’s all-grades math proficiency is 62%, 29 points above the state and 44 points above North Canyon’s 18%; it also leads 11th-grade science at 42%, compared with North Canyon’s 8%. Shadow Mountain has the top all-grades ELA result at 62%, 21 points above the state and 32 points above North Canyon’s 30%; it also leads 11th-grade ELA at 63%. Horizon and Paradise Valley fall between the leaders and North Canyon on most reported results.
SchoolDigger’s rankings improved from 2023–24 to 2025–26 for the four schools ranked in both years: Pinnacle rose 4 percentile points, Paradise Valley 5, Horizon 4 and North Canyon 12; Pinnacle ranked highest in 2025–26, 39th of 256 schools. Pinnacle’s percentile did slip from 87 in 2024–25 to 85 in 2025–26, and Shadow Mountain has no 2025–26 ranking. These ranking shifts are not evidence of test-score changes. Graduation rates offer another point of comparison: all five exceeded the state’s 80% rate, averaging 91%; Pinnacle was highest at 96%, and North Canyon lowest at 83%. School size and student–teacher ratios do not sort neatly with results: Pinnacle has 2,430 students and a 23.8 ratio, while Shadow Mountain has 1,080 students and a 15.5 ratio, yet both stand out in different subjects.
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