Wakefield Middle School

Wakefield Middle School is a public middle school located in Tucson, Arizona, serving 269 students in grades 6-8. The school is part of the Tucson Unified District, which is ranked 208 out of 289 districts in the state and has a 1-star rating from SchoolDigger. However, Wakefield Middle School has seen a steady improvement in its statewide ranking over the past decade, moving from the bottom 20% of Arizona middle schools to the middle 30% in recent years, with a 3-star rating from SchoolDigger.

Wakefield Middle School consistently outperforms the Tucson Unified District and the state of Arizona in academic proficiency across various subjects and grade levels. For example, in the 2024-2025 school year, 46% of Wakefield's 8th-grade students were proficient or better in Science, compared to 17% for the district and 30% for the state. The school also has particularly strong performance among certain student subgroups, ranking in the top 30% of Arizona middle schools for Hispanic students and in the top 20% for Native American students in academic proficiency. Additionally, Wakefield Middle School has maintained relatively low dropout rates, ranging from 3.9% to 6.6% over the past few years, which is lower than the district and state averages.

Compared to nearby schools, Wakefield Middle School outperforms Pistor Middle School and Utterback Middle School, which are also part of the Tucson Unified District, in academic proficiency across various subjects and grade levels. However, it lags behind the Mansfeld Middle Magnet School, another Tucson Unified District school, in several areas. The significant increase in the percentage of students receiving free or reduced-price lunch at Wakefield Middle School, from 40% in 2021-2022 to 63.51% in 2022-2023, indicates that the school is serving a growing population of economically disadvantaged students, which may have implications for the school's resource allocation and support services.