Summary:
Zip code 75840 in Fairfield, Texas, is home to two elementary schools serving grades PK-5 within the Fairfield Independent School District (Isd), a district ranked in the bottom half of Texas, serving a community with significant economic needs as indicated by an average free/reduced lunch rate of about 65.5%.
Fairfield Elementary (PK-2) and Fairfield Intermediate (3-5) each enroll 348 students, but their academic trajectories are starkly different. Fairfield Elementary, while lacking recent test scores due to its grade span, has a history of outperforming the district, having once ranked in the 54th percentile. In contrast, Fairfield Intermediate is in a severe academic decline, with its state ranking plummeting from the 51st percentile to the 21st percentile in just two years. This "transition cliff" is evident in its 3rd-grade STAAR scores, where only 24.78% of students are proficient in math compared to 44.33% statewide, suggesting students arrive significantly behind. The Intermediate school actually spends $545 more per student ($11,964 vs. $11,419) and has a slightly better student-teacher ratio (12.8:1 vs. 14:1) than the Elementary school, yet its performance is critically low, pointing to deeper issues beyond funding or class size.
The most critical takeaway is the urgent need for intervention at Fairfield Intermediate, particularly in early math and reading, as its 3rd-grade reading proficiency (33.63%) also lags far behind the state average (51.08%). A rare bright spot is 5th-grade science, where the school's proficiency rate (27.19%) is nearly on par with the state (29.57%), suggesting a potential model for improvement. For parents, this data reveals a district struggling to serve its high-needs population, with a clear breakdown in academic preparation between the early and upper elementary grades that demands immediate attention.
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