Summary
Escalante Middle/High School in Tierra Amarilla, NM, is a small rural school serving grades 7–12 with 134 students, and it is the only school within 20 miles, located in the Chama Valley Indep. Schools district. Nearly all students—98.51% in 2024–25—were eligible for free/reduced lunch, and the student-teacher ratio was 11.1. That makes it a small, high-poverty rural secondary school.
The school’s academic profile is challenging. That district is ranked 87th out of 87 in New Mexico with 0 stars. The school’s statewide rank has fallen from the top quartile to near the bottom: in 2025–26 it ranked 129th of 132, at the 2nd percentile with 0 stars. In 2025–26 all-grades tests, language arts was 18.61% at the school, 24.74% in the district, and 43.34% statewide; math was under 5% at the school, 7.23% in the district, and 25.54% statewide; science was 11.47% at the school, 14.45% in the district, and 33.4% statewide. Eleventh-grade and SAT math results were also under 5%. Middle-grade data are mostly suppressed, making comparisons limited. In 2024–25, ELA and science were above district averages but still below state averages; 2025–26 results fell below district levels in combined language arts, math, and science.
Graduation rates are a relative strength: 89.6% in 2023–24 and 83.5% in 2024–25, both above the state average, though the 13.0% rate in 2021–22 is a severe outlier that should be verified. Recent subgroup effectiveness has been weak across nearly all reported groups; the main bright spot was low-income students in 2023–24, when the school ranked at the 64th percentile with 3 stars, but that fell to the 3rd percentile in 2025–26. Because there are no other schools within 20 miles, no direct nearby-school comparison is available; the useful comparisons are to the district and state. Overall, this is a small, high-poverty school working to turn small classes and relatively favorable graduation outcomes into stronger academic proficiency.
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