Best Middle Schools in Zip Code 87532

Zip code 87532 covers Espanola, New Mexico, and contains exactly one middle school serving grades 7–8: Carlos F. Vigil Middle, part of Espanola Public Schools, with 379 students. Because it is the only middle-school option in the area, there is no local school-to-school comparison to make, so the district and state are the most useful benchmarks. The school serves a high-need population, with a free/reduced lunch rate of 95.25% and a student-teacher ratio of 14:1 in 2024–2025.

English Language Arts is the relative bright spot. All-grades ELA proficiency is 28.62% on NM-MSSA, slightly above the district's 27.25% but well below the state's 44.66%. Seventh grade ELA is the strongest single result at 32.03%, compared with 25.32% in 8th grade. Math is the biggest concern: all-grades math is 8.01%, 8th grade math is 6.92%, and 7th grade math is 9.15% — below the district's all-grades math rate of 10.56% and far under the state's 27.85%. Eighth grade science is 11.32% on NM-ASR, roughly a third of the state's 34.33%.

Trends have mostly moved the wrong way. ELA fell from 32.85% to 28.62% and 8th grade science dropped from 15.61% to 11.32%, while math rose slightly from 7.20% to 8.01%. The school ranked 182 out of 191 in 2025–2026, placing it in the 5th percentile with 0 stars, after the 11th percentile in 2024–2025 and the 9th percentile in 2023–2024. Seventh grade outperformed 8th grade in both ELA (a 6.71 percentage-point gap) and math (2.23 points), and ELA remains about 20.61 percentage points stronger than math within the school.