Original Research by School Decision on Valley Preparatory Academy
Valley Preparatory Academy is a small alternative charter high school in Tempe, serving grades nine through twelve. It operates under Kestrel Schools Inc., a district for which no recent parent-relevant changes were publicly reported. The school’s enrollment is a small one, with the vast majority of its students in twelfth grade, meaning most of the student body is in their final year of high school. The grade-level counts shift from just a single ninth grader to twenty twelfth graders, an uneven distribution that likely reflects how students enter the school at different stages of their high school careers.
The student population is roughly split between Hispanic students and white students, with small numbers of American Indian or Alaska Native, Black, and multiracial students. Data on students who qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, those with individualized education plans, and English learners were not available, so it is not possible to speak to the share of the school’s population in these categories based on the reported information.
Valley Preparatory Academy is an alternative school, and that designation is central to understanding its academic profile. State testing data was not available for this school, so there is no reported proficiency information to evaluate. Similarly, the four-year graduation rate and the chronic absenteeism rate were both absent from the data. The comparison that would place the school relative to other districts in Maricopa County could not be run for any of these core metrics because the values were missing at the school level. A parent looking into this school should expect that standard measures of academic performance may not apply in the same way they do for a comprehensive high school, and that the school likely serves students who are seeking a nontraditional path to a diploma. Because the school is an alternative setting, missing test results and graduation figures are not unusual and do not necessarily reflect weak performance; they are consistent with a program that may not participate in the same testing and reporting frameworks as mainstream schools.
The school is located in Tempe, an inner suburb of Phoenix that is heavily shaped by Arizona State University’s main campus. Northern Tempe, near the Valley Metro light rail line, is dense and urban, with high-rise buildings along Tempe Town Lake and the pedestrian-oriented Mill Avenue shopping and entertainment district. The southern part of the city, where the school’s address on Southern Avenue lies, is less dense, with single-family homes, strip malls, and office parks. Tempe is a college town where the university and downtown are deeply integrated, and major employers include Arizona State University, State Farm, and a number of corporate headquarters such as GoDaddy and First Solar. Housing values in the area have seen a slight decline recently, and rents have also eased modestly, at a time when the national housing market has shown a small increase in values.
The school’s programs were not listed in the data, so it is not possible to describe any specific academic pathways, career and technical education offerings, or extracurricular activities. Because this is an alternative charter school with thin public data on academics and outcomes, the clearest picture a parent can get is that this is a small, non-traditional high school in a large, economically dynamic city, likely designed for students who need a different setting to complete their secondary education. Those considering it should contact the school directly to understand its curriculum, graduation requirements, and the support it provides for students transitioning in at various points in their high school career.
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