Best High Schools in Zip Code 87528

ZIP code 87528 covers Dulce, New Mexico, and contains just one high school serving grades 9–12: Dulce High, a 160-student school in Dulce Independent Schools. Because it is the only high school in the area, there is no other local school to compare it against, so parents should weigh its numbers against New Mexico statewide averages.

The clearest bright spot is graduation. Dulce High's 2024–2025 graduation rate is 87.6%, which is 7.0 percentage points above the New Mexico rate of 80.6% — a strong result given the school's other challenges. The student-teacher ratio is 9.8, a relatively low figure that suggests smaller classes and more individual attention. At the same time, 99.38% of students qualify for free or reduced lunch, meaning nearly the entire student body is economically disadvantaged. That context matters when reading any test or ranking result.

Test scores and rankings are where the picture turns difficult. In 2023–2024, Dulce High ranked 148th of 172 schools, at the 14th percentile with 1 star, after sitting at the 16th percentile in 2022–2023 and the 3rd percentile with 0 stars in 2018–2019. The district ranks 86th of 87 statewide, at the 1st percentile with 0 stars. In 11th grade English language arts, the school is at 20.93% versus the state's 36.78%, and SAT English language arts is 21.43% versus 37.07%. Mathematics and science scores are reported only as under 20% for the school, so those cannot be compared precisely to state figures — though where the state rate is 25.54% in math or roughly 33%–34% in science, the school sits below it. In short: graduation is a strength, test proficiency and rankings are not.