Summary:
The city of Atascosa, Texas, is home to two public schools—Elm Creek Elementary and Ronald E McNair Middle—both part of the Southwest Independent School District (ISD), serving students from elementary through middle school with no high school within city limits.
Elm Creek Elementary stands out for its consistent improvement, rising from the 40th to the 54th percentile in state rankings over three years and earning a 3-star rating. Its reading scores are a relative strength, with 5th graders nearly matching the state average in English Reading. However, a significant gap exists in Spanish STAAR performance, where only 11.76% of 4th graders were proficient versus 51.09% in English, suggesting the bilingual program may need more support. In contrast, Ronald E McNair Middle excels in advanced math, with 83.33% of 8th graders scoring proficient or above in Algebra I—far exceeding district and state averages. Yet this masks a broader struggle: general math proficiency drops sharply, with only 8.5% of 7th graders proficient in grade-level math, creating a "two-tiered" system where a small advanced group thrives while most students need urgent intervention.
Both schools serve high-poverty populations, with free/reduced lunch rates around 78-80%, and have similar per-student spending near $11,000. Science is a consistent weakness across both schools, with proficiency rates well below state averages. The middle school also shows a "math cliff" where 6th-grade math proficiency of 29% plummets to 8.5% in 7th grade before recovering slightly in 8th grade, likely due to the Algebra I cohort. For parents, Elm Creek Elementary offers a rising trajectory and solid reading, while Ronald E McNair Middle provides a standout advanced math program but requires close attention to foundational math and science support for most students.
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