Crystal City High School

Crystal City High School serves 505 students in grades 9-12 within the Crystal City Independent School District (Isd), located in a rural area of Crystal City, TX, where over 74% of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch.

This school stands out for its exceptional support of migrant students, ranking 3rd out of 95 schools statewide in 2023-2024—a remarkable achievement given its overall low state ranking in the bottom quarter of Texas high schools. However, academic performance is mixed compared to nearby schools. In English I and II, Crystal City’s proficiency rates (43.18% and 43.97%) are slightly higher than La Pryor Secondary (40% and 41.86%) but lower than Carrizo Springs High School (44.12% and 47.97%). A significant weakness is math: Algebra I proficiency (29.41%) is far below La Pryor’s 60.87%, though it beats Carrizo Springs’ 24.73%. The school’s graduation rate (88.9%) is lower than La Pryor’s (93.9%) but higher than Carrizo Springs’ (80.1%), yet its dropout rate (1.9%) is notably higher than La Pryor’s (0.5%).

Several factors may influence these outcomes. Crystal City has a higher student-teacher ratio (16.2) than both La Pryor (12.9) and Carrizo Springs (13.6), suggesting larger class sizes. It also spends significantly less per student ($11,198) compared to La Pryor ($15,014) and Carrizo Springs ($15,056), despite serving a similarly high-poverty population. While the school shows a slight upward trend in overall state ranking, from the 18th to the 23rd percentile over recent years, it remains in the bottom quarter. Notably, the school’s Algebra I scores may be inflated by high-performing 8th graders from the middle school, masking the true performance of high school students in that subject.