Yucca Middle

Yucca Middle is a grades 7–8 school at 1500 Sycamore in Clovis, New Mexico, serving about 480 students — roughly 240 per grade — as one of three middle-level campuses in Clovis Municipal Schools, a district that ranks 57th of 87 New Mexico districts. In 2025–2026, Yucca ranked 91st of 191 state middle schools (52nd percentile, 3 stars), its first 3-star year since 2018–19, and it has gained in percentile four years running, from the 27th to the 52nd.

Compared with nearby schools, Yucca is strongest in reading and weakest in math. Its 47.96% English language arts proficiency runs about 3 points above both state and district; its 24.64% math proficiency runs about 3 points below state and 4.4 below district. The sharpest concern is 8th-grade math at 17.50%, below district and state and more than 13 points under the school's own 7th-grade result (31.31%). That figure trails W D Gattis Middle School by roughly 4.5–5 points and largely explains why Gattis ranks at the 60th percentile while Yucca sits at the 52nd. Yucca also has the highest student-to-teacher ratio in this group at 17.2, versus 14.3 at Gattis, 13.4 at Lindsey-Steiner Elementary, 12.3 at Texico Middle, 11.8 at Marshall 6th Grade Academy and 9.0 at Portales Junior High. Texico Middle sets the regional ceiling at 97th percentile and 5 stars, roughly 30–50 points higher in proficiency, though with 137 students it is not a like-for-like comparison.

The most encouraging finding is the school's work with low-income students: those from low-socioeconomic-status backgrounds ranked in the 69th percentile with 4 stars — 17 points above the school's overall standing and up from the 47th and 54th percentiles in the two prior years — which suggests the improvement is not confined to the school's most advantaged students. Several subgroups are too small to read reliably, and special-education and English-learner data are too dated or too thin to support conclusions.