Best High Schools in Zip Code 85621

ZIP code 85621 has two high schools: Nogales High School, serving grades 9–12 with 1,774 students, and Pierson High School, serving grades 7–12 with 119; together they enroll 1,893 students. The schools differ considerably in size and grade span, and the clearest concerns in the available results are that Nogales trails state proficiency levels in every reported subject and Pierson’s graduation rate is low.

Neither school leads across all the supplied measures: Nogales has the stronger reported SchoolDigger ranking, while Pierson has the lower student-teacher ratio and higher reported per-student spending but a much lower graduation rate. Pierson’s 2024–25 graduation rate was 57%, compared with 80% statewide and 84% in the Nogales Unified District—gaps of 23 and 28 percentage points. Pierson’s ratio was 14.8 students per teacher, versus 23.6 at Nogales, and its 2021–22 spending was $10,718 per student, compared with $6,013 at Nogales. Nogales’s proficiency was below state results in every available comparison: for example, all-grades math was 20% versus 33% statewide, its largest reported gap at 13 percentage points. Pierson’s proficiency scores are suppressed, so its academic performance cannot be compared with Nogales’s.

SchoolDigger ranking histories show declines in percentile standing, but cover different periods and are not a same-year comparison. Nogales moved from the 41st percentile in 2023–24 to the 36th in 2025–26, after falling to the 29th percentile in between; Pierson went from the 14th percentile in 2020–21 to the 3rd in 2022–23. Nogales’s 11th-grade results were closer to district figures than state figures: it was 2 percentage points above the district in ELA and 1 point above in math, yet remained below the state in both. ELA was also relatively stronger than math or science against state results, with a 6-point gap for 11th-grade ELA versus 11 points in math and 12 in science. These patterns offer different considerations for families: Pierson’s smaller scale and lower ratio contrast with its graduation result, while Nogales has the available proficiency results and the higher ranking in its most recent listed period.