Middle Schools in Sunnyside Unified District

The four middle schools in Sunnyside Unified District serve grades 4–8 overall, with each school reporting results for grades 7 and 8. Across the schools, the average all-grades result is 23% in ELA—18 points below the state’s 41% and equal to the district’s 23%—and 11% in math, 23 points below the state’s 33% and 4 points below the district’s 14%. The clearest academic standout is Gallego Intermediate Fine Arts Magnet School, though its all-grades results also remain below the state.

Gallego leads the group in all-grades ELA (38%) and math (25%), ahead of the next-highest schools by 15 and 18 points, respectively. Its grade 7 ELA result is 44%, 1 point above the state’s 43%; the other schools range from 18% to 31%. At the lower end, Challenger Middle School and Apollo Middle School have the lowest all-grades ELA results, at 15% and 16%. Billy Lane Lauffer Middle School has the lowest all-grades math result, 4%, despite its 23% ELA result. In grade 8 science, Gallego and Billy Lane Lauffer tie at 14%, while Apollo is lowest at 9%; all are below the state’s 30%.

SchoolDigger’s rankings improved from 2023–24 to 2025–26 for Gallego (18th to 31st percentile) and Billy Lane Lauffer (5th to 13th), while Challenger moved from the 0th to 1st percentile and Apollo fell from the 4th to 1st. In the latest rankings, Gallego is highest at 368 of 536 (31st percentile, two stars); Challenger and Apollo are in the 1st percentile with zero stars. Enrollment and student–teacher ratios do not show a clear pattern with results: Gallego, the largest school (768 students; 21.3 students per teacher), leads, while Apollo has the lowest ratio (14.5) but lower scores. Schools have different grade spans, Billy Lane Lauffer’s grade 7 math result is suppressed, and income data are not reported, so these figures do not provide a complete basis for comparing every aspect of the schools.