Summary:
Zip code 85621 has two middle schools, both serving grades 6–8 in Nogales Unified District: Desert Shadows Middle School and Wade Carpenter Middle School. The clearest overall finding is that Desert Shadows leads Wade Carpenter in every reported subject, though its all-grade results remain just below the state in ELA and further below in math.
Desert Shadows is the area’s top performer, with 39% proficiency in all-grade ELA and 28% in math, compared with Wade Carpenter’s 24% and 14%—gaps of 15 and 14 percentage points. In 8th-grade science, the latest results are from 2024–25: Desert Shadows scored 23% and Wade Carpenter 13%. Both schools are below the state in these overall measures; Desert Shadows is 2 points below the state in ELA, 5 in math, and 7 in science. Its strongest exception is 7th grade, where ELA proficiency is 51% versus 43% statewide and math is 39% versus 27%. The biggest difference between the schools by grade is 7th-grade math: 39% at Desert Shadows versus 14% at Wade Carpenter. Wade is below the state in every reported grade-level ELA and math result.
SchoolDigger also ranks Desert Shadows higher: 49th percentile and two stars for 2025–26, compared with Wade Carpenter’s 13th percentile and one star. Across the three listed years, each school’s percentile ranking is up 1 point overall, although neither follows a steady upward path; these rankings do not show a trend in test scores. School size and student–teacher ratios do not mirror the performance difference: Desert Shadows has 784 students and a ratio of 23, while Wade has 547 students and a ratio of 21.8, yet Desert Shadows leads in each reported subject. The free/reduced-lunch figures were not supplied, and only one year of ELA and math test results is available.
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