Summary:
Zip code 85641 has two Vail Unified middle schools, Old Vail Middle School and Corona Foothills Middle School, both serving grades 6–8. In 2025–26, both schools’ all-grades English language arts (ELA) and math proficiency rates exceeded Arizona’s; Corona Foothills had the higher results in both subjects. The most important difference for families is that Corona Foothills leads overall, with the gap especially large in 8th grade.
Corona Foothills stands out at the top in all-grades ELA, with 67% proficient compared with 57% at Old Vail and 41% statewide; in math, the figures are 52%, 45%, and 33%. The schools’ advantage over the state ranges from 12 to 26 percentage points in those subjects. The difference between the schools is concentrated in 8th grade: Corona Foothills leads by 22 points in ELA (69% to 47%) and 21 points in math (63% to 42%), while the grade-level gaps in 6th and 7th grade are only 1 to 4 points. Old Vail’s exception is 7th-grade math: its 46% is 1 point above Corona Foothills and 2 points above the district. In 2024–25 8th-grade science, Corona Foothills also leads, at 67% versus Old Vail’s 49% and the state’s 30%.
SchoolDigger’s rankings show both schools’ statewide standing slightly lower than three years earlier, not a measured change in test scores: Old Vail moved from the 79th percentile in 2023–24 to the 76th in 2025–26, while Corona Foothills moved from the 91st to the 88th. Old Vail enrolls 811 students and has a 20.3 student-teacher ratio; Corona Foothills enrolls 619 and has a 19.7 ratio. These modest differences in enrollment and staffing accompany much larger 8th-grade score gaps, but do not explain them. Free/reduced-lunch figures are unavailable, and the science results are from a different school year than the AASA results.
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