Snell Middle

Snell Middle is a public middle school in Bayard, New Mexico — a small community in the Silver City area — serving grades 6–8 with 201 students as part of Cobre Consolidated Schools. For families weighing options, the most important fact is that the school currently sits in the bottom 10% of New Mexico middle schools: it ranked 173rd of 191 in 2025–2026 and earned 0 stars, while its district ranked 51st of 87 statewide (2 stars).

Proficiency is low across subjects. In 2025–2026, 28.18% of students were proficient in English language arts, 11.54% in math, and 13.46% in 8th-grade science, compared with state rates of 44.66%, 27.85%, and 34.33%. The nearest comparison, La Plata Middle in Silver City, about eight miles away, had 52.38% in ELA, 23.38% in math, and 35.96% in science in the same year. Snell's 6th grade was especially low — 19.44% in ELA and 12.5% in math — and its 8th-grade math proficiency was under 20%. Notably, poverty looks nearly identical at both schools (100% versus 99.61% free/reduced lunch eligibility), while class sizes differ: 17.3 students per teacher at Snell versus 11.3 at La Plata.

The bigger concern is the trend. Snell ranked in the 48th percentile in 2023–2024 and the 62nd percentile in 2018–2019, but fell to the 9th percentile in 2025–2026. Rankings for student subgroups, including low-income students (17th percentile), dropped as well, which points to a school-wide issue rather than a problem limited to one group of students. Snell also trails its own district in ELA (28.18% versus 45.65%) and math (11.54% versus 18.16%), meaning it is a weaker performer than the district average. Its earlier years show it has reached much higher levels before.