Summary:
ZIP code 88240 is home to three middle schools — Houston Middle School, Highland Middle School, and Heizer Middle School — all part of Hobbs Municipal Schools in New Mexico, enrolling 2,236 students combined. Highland and Heizer serve grades 6–8, while Houston serves grades 6–9, meaning its numbers blend in a ninth-grade population the others do not have. The district itself ranks 68th of 87 in the state (22nd percentile, 1 star), so all three schools operate within a district in the bottom quartile statewide.
On achievement, Houston Middle School leads the group with the highest language arts (37.32) and math (24.48) proficiency, and it is the only school above its district in math and the only one to earn a 3-star year. But its ELA fell 10.2 points year over year, and its 6th-grade ELA (25.09) sits nearly 20 points below its own 7th grade — a striking internal gap. Highland Middle School is the most uneven: strong 6th-grade reading and math above district averages, but 8th-grade math of just 7.69, the lowest figure in the data set, with math roughly halving at each grade. Heizer Middle School posts the lowest scores overall but is the only school improving in ELA (up 1.5 points), plus the largest math (+5.2) and science (+7.9) gains.
Two patterns stand out for families. First, poverty tracks achievement almost exactly: free/reduced lunch rises from 62.9% at Houston to 76.57% at Heizer, the inverse of the achievement order. Heizer also has the smallest classes (13.9 students per teacher) yet still the lowest results. Second, every school is below the state in both reading and math, and all three slipped in percentile rank in 2025–26 even as state scores edged up — pointing to a shared district-level challenge. In short: Houston performs best but is declining, Highland is highly uneven across grades, and Heizer is improving fastest from the lowest starting point.
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