Best Public Schools in Zip Code 85268

Schools in ZIP code 85268 include four schools serving elementary, middle, high school, and alternative-school students, with 1,034 students enrolled; all are part of the Fountain Hills Unified District, which SchoolDigger ranks 178th of 267 districts, in the 33rd percentile, with 2 stars. Across the three schools with reported results, English language arts (ELA) proficiency averages 41%, matching the state rate, while math averages 23% against 33% statewide. The clearest area-wide concern is math: every school with reported results is below the state rate.

Fountain Hills Middle School stands out in ELA at 48%, followed by Fountain Hills High School at 46%; McDowell Mountain Elementary School is lowest at 29%, a 19-point spread from the middle school. Math results are lower and closer together: the high school leads at 30%, while the elementary and middle schools each report 20%. Grade-level results reinforce the contrasts: middle school 8th-grade ELA is 52%, 13 points above the state rate, while elementary 4th-grade ELA is 31%, 16 points below its state rate. The high school’s 11th-grade math result, 30%, is just 1 point below the state rate; middle school math results are 8 to 10 points below state rates in grades 6–8.

SchoolDigger rankings show mixed school-level trends and an overall dip in the latest year: the three schools’ average percentile moved from 45 in 2023–24 to 51 in 2024–25, then to 40 in 2025–26. The high school improved from 43 to 55 across the period, while the elementary school fell from 34 to 17 and the middle school from 57 to 49; these are ranking changes, not test-score trends. Ratios and enrollment do not suggest a simple results pattern: the elementary school has 382 students and a student-teacher ratio of 11.3, yet its ELA result is lowest, while the middle school leads in ELA with a ratio of 14.3. The Fountain Hills Virtual Academy enrolls 55 students but has no test scores listed, and free/reduced-lunch figures are unavailable.