Summary:
ZIP code 85050 has six schools—three elementary schools, one middle school and two high schools—serving students from elementary through high school. Across the six, average proficiency is 73% in ELA and 70% in math, compared with Arizona averages of 41% and 33%. The central finding is that results are strong overall but vary substantially by school: the all-grades results span 22 percentage points in ELA and 28 points in math.
Desert Trails Elementary School is the strongest all-around elementary performer: it leads in both subjects in grades 3 and 5 and in grade 6 math, where its 90% proficiency is just above Sky Crossing Elementary School’s 89%. The exception is grade 4, where Wildfire Elementary School leads with 90% in ELA and 84% in math; Sky Crossing also tops grade 6 ELA, 87% to Desert Trails’ 86%. In all-grades results, Desert Trails and AAEC - Paradise Valley tie for highest ELA at 81%, while Desert Trails leads math at 87%; the lowest rates are 59% ELA at Pinnacle High School and 59% math at AAEC. In grade 11, AAEC leads Pinnacle in ELA by 23 points and science by 5, while Pinnacle leads math by 3. Because schools serve different grade spans, all-grades comparisons are broad rather than like-for-like.
SchoolDigger rankings show high statewide standing that was mostly stable or improved: all six schools ranked in at least the 85th percentile in 2025–26, Desert Trails stayed at the 99th percentile, and Explorer Middle School gained 6 percentile points from 2023–24 to 2025–26. The group’s average percentile rose from 90 to 93. Pinnacle also reported a 96% graduation rate, 16 points above Arizona’s 80% and 6 points above the Paradise Valley Unified District’s 90%. Student–teacher ratios range from 13.8 at Wildfire to 23.8 at Pinnacle, but the figures do not show a consistent relationship with proficiency; free/reduced-lunch rates are unavailable. Because no comparable multi-year test scores are provided, ranking changes should not be read as test-score trends.
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