Summary:
The Pharr-San Juan-Alamo Independent School District (Isd) is home to eight middle schools serving grades 6 through 8, with a total enrollment of about 5,834 students in a predominantly low-income area where an average of 94% of students qualify for free or reduced lunch.
For parents seeking top academic performance, Austin Middle and Audie Murphy Middle stand out as the highest-ranked schools in the district, both placing in the 61st percentile statewide. They consistently lead in Reading and 6th-grade Math scores. The most improved school is Jesus - Jesse - Vela Junior Middle, which jumped 12 percentile points to the 54th percentile and now boasts the district's highest 8th-grade Reading (60.56%) and Math (61.02%) scores. Lyndon B Johnson Middle is a standout for advanced math, with 99% of its Algebra I students scoring proficient. On the other end, R Yzaguirre Middle consistently ranks lowest in the district at the 42nd percentile, with test scores generally below district averages. Notably, all eight schools reported a 0.0% dropout rate for the 2023-2024 school year, and student-teacher ratios are low, averaging 12.0:1.
The most critical finding is a district-wide crisis in 7th-grade Math, where proficiency rates range from just 4.07% to 24.64%, far below the state average of 29.41%. This contrasts sharply with the district's phenomenal success in Algebra I, where all schools exceed 91% proficiency. Interestingly, the two highest-spending schools—Jaime Escalante Middle ($15,033 per student) and Kennedy Middle ($14,924)—are among the lowest-ranked, while top performers like Austin Middle spend less ($11,525), suggesting that school culture and instructional quality matter more than funding alone. The three smallest schools also serve the highest percentages of economically disadvantaged students, highlighting the profound impact of poverty on outcomes.
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