Valley High

Valley High is a 9–12 comprehensive high school in Albuquerque, New Mexico, serving 962 students as part of Albuquerque Public Schools, a district ranked 55th of 87 statewide, in a community where nearly every student qualifies for free or reduced lunch (96.15% in 2024–25).

Valley's 2025–26 state rank is 80th of 132 schools (39th percentile, 2 stars). Its scores sit below both district and state averages in every core subject: language arts at 33.15 (versus roughly 43.5 for both district and state), science at 28.42 (versus about 33.5), and math at 10.87 — less than half the district and state rates of about 25.5, making math the clearest academic gap. Graduation has improved, rising from 66.4% in 2022–23 to 73.7% in 2024–25, though it still trails the district's 75.6% and the state's 80.6%; the school reached 80.7% in 2020–21, so higher levels have been achievable here. A bright spot is staffing: the student-teacher ratio has improved to 12.9, better than Albuquerque High's 14.7 and Ace Leadership High School's 15.3. Note that 10th-grade test results are suppressed and cannot be evaluated.

Comparisons are informative. Albuquerque High enrolls 1,568 students with a similarly high-poverty population (89.09% free/reduced lunch) yet outperforms Valley in language arts, math, science, and graduation — suggesting poverty alone doesn't fully explain the difference. Digital Arts And Technology Academy and Tierra Adentro also post stronger test results. Against smaller alternative and charter settings, though, Valley compares well: Ace Leadership High School has a higher graduation rate (82.4%) but much lower available test scores, and Valley's graduation rate exceeds Tierra Adentro (66.8%), Archer Academy Of Accelerated Learning (60.4%), and Gordon Bernell Charter (22.7%). Within the school, outcomes vary by group: in 2025–26 male students ranked at the 50th percentile (3 stars) while female students ranked at the 19th (1 star), and low-income students ranked at the 19th percentile, down from the 38th the year before. These figures describe how well the school is serving different populations, not the students themselves.