Safford Unified District

The six schools in Safford Unified District serve elementary, middle and high school grades in the Safford area and enroll 2,874 students. Results vary considerably by school and subject, so families will get a clearer picture by looking beyond a single districtwide impression. Across the five schools with reported all-grades scores, math is the clearest shared weakness: average proficiency is 29%, compared with 33% statewide, a 4-point gap; ELA averages 40%, just 1 point below the 41% state figure.

Ruth Powell Elementary School leads in all-grades ELA at 48%, 7 points above the state, while Dorothy Stinson School leads in math at 40%, also 7 points above the state. Their strengths differ by grade: Ruth leads elementary fifth- and sixth-grade ELA, while Dorothy leads third- and fifth-grade math. At the lower end of the reported all-grades results, Safford High School has 32% in ELA and 20% in math; its 11th-grade results are also below state figures by 6 and 11 points, respectively. Its graduation and dropout measures are more favorable: an 88% graduation rate is 8 points above the state, and a 4% dropout rate is 1 point below. By contrast, Mt Graham High School reports a 59% graduation rate and 28% dropout rate.

SchoolDigger’s statewide percentile rankings improved overall for the five schools with comparable figures: their average rose from 39 in 2023–24 to 44 in 2025–26, up 4 points. Dorothy Stinson gained 9 points, Lafe Nelson School gained 7, Ruth Powell and Safford Middle School each gained 4, while Safford High fell 2 points, despite a temporary dip in the intervening year. Elementary enrollment and student–teacher ratios do not line up neatly with results: Lafe Nelson has the smallest enrollment and highest ratio (22.4), yet its 33% math result is above Ruth Powell’s 29%. Mt Graham’s AASA results are suppressed, and free/reduced-lunch figures are unavailable.