Original Research by School Decision on Children First Leadership Academy
Children First Leadership Academy is a small charter school in Phoenix serving kindergarten through eighth grade. It operates as part of the Edkey Inc. – Sequoia Ranch School district, a network of charter schools in Arizona. The school sits in the southern part of Phoenix, near the Salt River bed, in a neighborhood of mixed industrial and residential use. The city itself is a fast-growing, car-oriented urban center with a wide grid of streets and a broad economy anchored in services, technology, manufacturing, and tourism.
The school’s enrollment is modest, with roughly a hundred students spread across grades K through 8. Class sizes are consistently small in the tested grades, each cohort numbering well under twenty students. The student body is predominantly Hispanic, with a sizable Black population and a small share of White, multiracial, and Native American students. The share of students who qualify for free or reduced-price lunch was not reported, nor were counts of students with disabilities or English learners. A parent looking for that information would need to ask the school directly.
State testing data for the 2024-25 school year is largely suppressed. In Arizona, schools administer the AASA in math and English language arts from grades 3 through 8 and the AzSci in science at grades 5 and 8. At Children First Leadership Academy, every tested grade level has a proficiency rate marked as suppressed, meaning the results are not reported publicly—likely because the number of students tested is too small to meet confidentiality thresholds. This means there is no way to infer overall academic performance from the state’s official measures. A parent interested in academic outcomes will need to rely on classroom reviews, parent visits, and conversations with the school about its own internal assessments and curriculum. The school does not serve high school grades, so there is no graduation rate to consider.
The school is a regular charter school, not a magnet or alternative program. It is not designated as a Title I school. Course access data, discipline records, and staffing ratios were not provided, so the profile is thinner than for most schools in the area. The district’s financial picture, as publicly reported, shows a decline in per-student spending over the last four school years alongside a rise in per-student revenue—a shift that could influence resources available at the school level.
Housing in the school’s ZIP code is moderately priced relative to the Phoenix metro area. Home values have risen modestly in the past year, while rents have edged down slightly. The national mortgage rate and unemployment rate are typical for this period. The area’s economic context is that of a large, growing city with a diverse employment base, though the school’s immediate surroundings are more industrial than the city’s suburban neighborhoods.
For parents considering Children First Leadership Academy, the defining traits are its small, intimate scale, its charter structure, and the absence of published test scores. It is a school that serves a predominantly Hispanic and Black student body in a part of Phoenix that is less affluent than the city’s northern suburbs. Without proficiency data or program listings, a family’s decision will rely heavily on a direct visit, conversations with the principal about curriculum and student support, and an understanding of what the school’s leadership model looks like in practice. The district brief notes a financial shift that may be worth asking about, but the school’s own resources and approach are the unknown that only firsthand inquiry can fill.
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