Best Public Schools in Navajo, NM

Five schools serve Navajo, New Mexico — two elementary, one middle, and two high, enrolling 784 students in grades PK–12 — in a rural, high-poverty area where free/reduced-price lunch rates run from 71.88% to 100%. Three of them, Navajo Elementary, Navajo Middle School, and Navajo Pine High, belong to Gallup-McKinley City Schools and together enroll about 86% of local students; that district ranks 60th of 87 in New Mexico at the 31st percentile. The remaining two, Dzit Dit Lool School Of Empowerment Action And Perseverance and Crystal Boarding School, are small and independently run, with 56 and 54 students.

The strongest documented academic result belongs to Navajo Middle School, whose All Grades English Language Arts proficiency was 48.05% in 2025–2026 — above both its district (39.37%) and the state (44.66%) — and whose state rank climbed from the 7th percentile to the 46th, at 2 stars. Navajo Pine High stands out in science: its 11th grade NM-ASR science score was 36.67%, above district (29.70%) and state (34.27%). Navajo Elementary is more mixed, with 5th grade ELA at 44.12%, above both, but 4th grade ELA at 20.59%, far below district and state; it improved from the 4th to the 26th percentile, at 1 star. Dzit Dit Lool and Crystal Boarding School have little usable test data, as most values are suppressed or absent.

Math is the shared weak point: reported All Grades math is 17.78% at Navajo Elementary, 17.11% at Navajo Middle, and under 20% at Navajo Pine High, all below district and state. High school completion also lags — Navajo Pine High's 2024–2025 graduation rate was 64.0% versus 75.8% district and 80.6% state, and Dzit Dit Lool's most recent school value is suppressed. Both Navajo Elementary and Navajo Middle posted real gains in ELA, math, and state rank, and student-teacher ratios vary widely, from 2.2 at Navajo Pine High to 13.5 at Crystal Boarding School. Still, most results trail New Mexico averages, and frequent state suppression means the smallest schools remain hard to judge.