Summary:
There is only one elementary school in the Boys Ranch Independent School District (Isd), Mimi Farley Elementary, which serves grades K-5 with a very small enrollment of just 21 students in a unique rural residential care setting.
Mimi Farley Elementary presents a dramatic and contradictory story. The school has extraordinary resources, spending $30,693 per student and maintaining an incredibly low student-teacher ratio of 2.9 to 1, which is almost one-on-one instruction. However, its academic performance has been extremely volatile. In the 2023-2024 school year, it was a 5-star school ranking in the 93rd percentile in Texas, but by the 2025-2026 school year, it plummeted to a 0-star school in the 1st percentile. This catastrophic drop is almost certainly due to the school's tiny size, where the performance of just a few students can swing the entire ranking. The 2025-2026 test scores are very low, with 0% of 4th graders passing math and only 16.67% of 3rd graders passing reading, compared to state averages around 50%.
The key takeaway for parents is that this school's ranking is a snapshot of a specific, high-needs student cohort, not a reflection of the school's overall quality or effort. The school is located at Boys Ranch, a residential care facility for at-risk youth, meaning the student body is likely transient and faces significant social and emotional challenges. The high spending and low ratio are a direct response to these needs, but the academic data shows the immense difficulty of overcoming them. This is a classic example of high variance in small sample sizes, and a single year's ranking should not be used to judge the school's value or the dedication of its staff.
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