Summary
Sierra Middle is a grades 6–8 school in Las Cruces, New Mexico, serving 698 students as part of Las Cruces Public Schools, a district that ranks 49th of 87 in New Mexico at the 44th percentile with 2 stars. Sierra's current 2025–2026 rank is 101st of 191 middle schools, at the 47th percentile with 2 stars — a step down from 3 stars and the 54th percentile in 2024–2025 and 3 stars and the 62nd percentile in 2023–2024. Over the longer run, the school has generally sat between the 41st and 65th percentiles, so it remains a mid-pack school that has recently softened rather than declined sharply.
Math is Sierra's clearest relative strength. All-grades math proficiency of 26.64% is above the district's 24.50% and the state's 25.54%, and 8th-grade math proficiency of 23.04% beats the district's 18.56% and the state's 20.29%, as well as Vista Middle, Mesa Middle, Zia Middle, Picacho Middle, and Lynn Middle. Only Camino Real Middle and the much smaller Mesilla Valley Leadership Academy scored higher. English language arts is the weaker side: 40.63% overall falls below the district's 44.73% and the state's 43.34%, and 7th-grade ELA at 41.59% is the softest grade-level result. Eighth-grade science, at 35.93%, is above the state but slightly under the district.
Nearly all Sierra students come from low-income families — free and reduced lunch was 99.71% in 2024–2025 and 100% in the two prior years — so results should be read in that context. One encouraging resource signal is the student-teacher ratio, which improved to 10.6 in 2024–2025 from 15.9 and 16.1 in the previous two years, lower than Mesa Middle and Mesilla Valley Leadership Academy. Overall, Sierra is mid-pack locally: stronger than Mesa, Zia, Picacho, and Lynn in most measures, but behind Vista, Camino Real, and Mesilla Valley Leadership Academy.
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