Peete Elementary

Peete Elementary in Tyler, TX, is a PK-5 school serving 385 students within the Tyler Independent School District (Isd), where over 97% of students qualify for free or reduced lunch, reflecting a community with extremely high economic need.

Peete Elementary consistently ranks among the lowest-performing schools in Texas, currently sitting at the 12th percentile statewide, which is far below the district average of the 51st percentile. The most critical area of concern is early literacy and math: only about 11% of 3rd graders were proficient in Reading and 18% in Math, compared to district averages of 43.5% and 38.8%, respectively. This performance is dramatically lower than nearby schools like Bonner Elementary, which serves a similar demographic but achieves much higher outcomes, ranking in the 60th percentile. Despite high per-student spending (around $10,500-$10,800), Peete has not seen sustained academic improvement, suggesting that financial resources alone are not addressing deeper instructional or cultural challenges.

Interestingly, Peete has shown a notable strength in its Special Education program, which ranked in the 88th and 89th percentiles statewide in recent years, though this success dropped sharply in the most recent data. In contrast, the school has consistently struggled to support its African American students, who ranked in the 5th percentile. The inconsistency across grade levels—such as 4th-grade Math proficiency being more than double that of 3rd grade—highlights the volatility of small class sizes and the difficulty of building on a weak foundation. For parents, the comparison to Bonner Elementary is instructive: just 1.6 miles away, Bonner achieves far better results with a similar student population, indicating that different strategies could yield significant improvements at Peete.