Tatum Junior High

Tatum Junior High in Tatum, NM, is a small public middle school serving 53 students in grades 7–8 as part of Tatum Municipal Schools; it sits in a rural area where no other school lies within 20 miles. In 2025–2026, Tatum Junior High ranked 23rd of 191 New Mexico middle schools—88th percentile and 4 stars—well above its ten-year average of about the 77th percentile.

The school's standout strength is English language arts. In 2025–2026, 75% of students were proficient in ELA versus 44.66% statewide, and 8th-grade ELA reached 84.62% against a state rate of 43.85%. Science is also strong: 8th-grade proficiency was 53.85% versus 34.33% statewide. Math is above the state (33.33% vs 25.54%) but noticeably weaker than the school's own ELA results and below the district's all-grade math average of 43.52%. Because Tatum Junior High is essentially the only provider of grades 7–8 in the district, its grade-level figures match the district's at those grades.

Two cautions matter. First, the school is tiny: about 11 seventh-graders and 13 eighth-graders are tested, so one student can shift grade-level results by roughly 7–9 percentage points; small year-to-year changes should not be overread. Second, 8th-grade math is reported as "—" because the state suppressed it for privacy, so that result is unknown, not necessarily low. The school recovered strongly after a low 2022–2023 year, with math climbing from 20% to 33.33% and science moving from below state to about 20 points above it, even as the share of low-income students rose from 41.18% to 56.6%. Overall, it is a high-performing, literacy-focused school with math as its clearest improvement area.