Summary:
The city of Pecos, Texas, is served by the Pecos-Barstow-Toyah Independent School District (Isd), which includes four schools—Austin Elementary (Pre-K through 1st grade), Zavala Elementary (grades 2-5), Crockett Middle (grades 6-8), and Pecos High School (grades 9-12)—serving a total of 2,919 students in a community with high economic disadvantage, where all schools report over 58% of students qualifying for free or reduced lunch.
Crockett Middle stands out as the district's strongest performer, showing a remarkable upward trend by jumping from the 19th to the 33rd percentile in state rankings over the past year, earning a 2-star rating—the highest in the district. Its 8th-grade Algebra I proficiency rate of 94.29% dramatically exceeds the state average of 54.03%, suggesting a highly effective advanced math program. In contrast, Pecos High School excels in keeping students enrolled, with a 97.1% graduation rate and a 0.1% dropout rate, yet its academic proficiency on End-of-Course exams remains low—only 20.31% of students were proficient in Algebra I compared to the state's 54.03%. Zavala Elementary faces significant challenges, with 4th-grade reading proficiency at 31.8% (state: 53.04%) and math at 31.02% (state: 49.28%), while students taking the Spanish STAAR test show even lower results, with only 5.26% proficient in 3rd-grade reading.
A key takeaway is that the district spends well above the state average per student—Pecos High School spends $23,153 per student—yet overall academic performance lags behind state averages, suggesting funding may be directed toward support services that boost retention rather than instruction. The positive momentum at Crockett Middle offers a promising model, while the gap between high graduation rates and low test scores at the high school indicates a system that successfully moves students through to graduation but may not fully prepare them for college-level work.
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