Original Research by School Decision on Humanities and Sciences Academy of the United Stat (4337)
Humanities and Sciences Academy of the United Stat (4337) is a small district in Maricopa County, Arizona, serving grades nine through twelve across three schools. The district's enrollment is heavily concentrated in the upper grades, with most students in eleventh and twelfth grade and very few in ninth and tenth. That pattern is a defining characteristic of the district, though the data does not explain the reason for it.
The student body is diverse. Hispanic students form the largest group, followed by White students, then Black students and American Indian or Alaska Native students, with smaller shares of students who are two or more races, Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander, and Asian. Information on the share of students who qualify for free or reduced-price meals, receive special education services, or are classified as English learners is not available in the data we examined.
The most notable piece of academic context is that there is virtually no state assessment data to draw on. The only test results in the record are from the school year ending in 2011, and those results are suppressed for every grade and subject due to very small numbers of test takers. A parent will not be able to use state test scores to evaluate academic performance here. This gap may reflect the nature of the district, but the data does not specify the reason. A family considering this district should ask the school directly about how it measures student learning and what outcomes look like.
The chronic absenteeism rate, by contrast, is one of the lowest among the districts in Maricopa County, placing in the top quartile. That suggests that students who are enrolled attend school regularly. Per-pupil current spending falls near the midpoint among county districts, in the lower half of the range. No graduation rate is reported in the data we have.
The district operates three schools: International Commerce High School – Tempe, Humanities and Sciences Academy Arizona, and International Commerce High School MCG. No city or town is listed for the district's address, and no community context such as housing, local economy, or demographics is available. The district brief turned up no recent high-impact policy changes or developments.
Anyone evaluating this district will need to fill in many gaps directly. Information on course offerings, advanced coursework, college and career programs, graduation rates, and the day-to-day learning environment is not present in the data we were able to review. The lack of test results and graduation data makes it difficult to compare this district with others on traditional academic measures. The unusual grade distribution may be a clue to the district's purpose, but without confirmation from the district itself, what that purpose is remains a question a prospective family will want to investigate.
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