Best Middle Schools in Zip Code 87401

ZIP code 87401 in Farmington, New Mexico is home to four middle schools serving grades 6–8 — Heights Middle School, Tibbetts Middle School, Hermosa Middle School, and Mesa View Middle School — all operated by Farmington Municipal Schools, with a combined enrollment of about 2,395 students. The district as a whole ranks 62 of 87 in New Mexico, so the differences among these four schools matter a great deal.

There is a wide split between the top and bottom of the group. Heights Middle School posts the highest English language arts proficiency at 51.24%, above both the district (40.40%) and the state (43.34%), with steady results across grades 6, 7 and 8. Hermosa Middle School leads in math (33.79%) and 8th-grade science (41.58%), and its 7th-grade math score of 38.71% is the strongest single grade-level result in the data. Both earn 3 stars and rank near the 61st–63rd percentile statewide. By contrast, Tibbetts Middle School (26.48% ELA, 9.56% math) and Mesa View Middle School (28.57% ELA, 11.59% math) both carry 1 star and sit in the bottom 12–13% of New Mexico middle schools two years running.

That means two schools in the same district, serving the same grades in the same ZIP code, are separated by roughly 25 points in ELA and 24 points in math. Hermosa Middle School also has the narrowest ELA–math gap in the group (10.8 points versus 17.8 statewide), suggesting unusually effective math instruction. Note that Heights Middle School and Hermosa Middle School both improved their scores year over year yet slipped in statewide rank, because other New Mexico schools improved faster. Heights' math also falls sharply by grade (41.75 in grade 6 to 22.54 in grade 8), while Hermosa's best math result is in grade 7. Class size does not track performance here — Mesa View Middle School has the smallest classes (14.1) yet is among the lowest performers.