Best High Schools in Zip Code 76012

Zip code 76012 in Arlington, TX, is home to two high schools within the Arlington Independent School District (Isd): a large traditional high school and a small alternative school, both serving a student population with a very high level of economic need.

Lamar High School is the area's primary comprehensive high school, enrolling 2,457 students in grades 9-12. It has consistently ranked near the 20th percentile statewide over the last three years, with academic performance below district and state averages across all subjects. The most concerning metric is its Algebra I proficiency rate, which sits at just 16.86% for the 2025-2026 school year. The school also reports a graduation rate of 83.8% and a dropout rate of 3.2%, both worse than the district average. In contrast, Turning Point Secondary School is a highly specialized alternative school with only 74 students in grades 7-12. It operates with an extraordinarily high per-student spending of $90,845 and a student-to-teacher ratio of 2.2:1, reflecting an intensive, individualized support model. While it reports a 0.0% dropout rate for 2023-2024, no standard STAAR test scores or recent graduation rate are available, making it difficult to compare academic outcomes directly.

The most striking takeaway is the extreme disparity in resource allocation: Turning Point spends over nine times more per student than Lamar High School. This highlights a clear trade-off between the low-cost, large-scale model at Lamar, which struggles with performance and retention, and the high-cost, low-scale model at Turning Point, which appears effective at preventing dropouts. Both schools share the challenge of serving a predominantly economically disadvantaged population (76.84% at Lamar, 82.43% at Turning Point), which is a critical context for understanding their outcomes. For parents, this means the area offers two very different educational paths: a traditional high school with significant academic challenges, and a small alternative school that provides intensive support but lacks standard performance metrics.