The reported proficiency rate for English language arts is 35%.
Original Research by School Decision on Arlington Elementary School
Arlington Elementary School is the single campus of the Arlington Elementary District, serving students from preschool through eighth grade in the tiny unincorporated community of Arlington, which sits about a 45-minute drive west of downtown Phoenix on old U.S. 80. The school is a regular public school, not a charter, and is the only school in its district. Because it does not serve high school grades, there is no graduation rate to report; older students from the community attend the Buckeye Union High School District.
The student body is small and predominantly Hispanic and white, which is a plain characteristic of the community the school draws from. A substantial share of students qualifies for free or reduced-price lunch, though the exact figure was not available in the data provided. The school itself is a rural, low-density setting with limited commercial activity and no identifiable downtown core. Housing values in the area are high, and the housing market shows signs of being an exclusive rural residential market rather than one experiencing active growth; the population trend in Arlington has been modest decline.
The academic picture comes from Arizona's state assessments, and it is incomplete for a parent to fully evaluate. For the 2024-25 school year, proficiency rates for most tested grades and subjects were suppressed by the state, meaning the state did not release them. The only reported proficiency rate came from fifth-grade English language arts, where about a third of students scored proficient or above. Science scores for fifth and eighth grade were also suppressed. The school's overall proficiency index across all tested subjects and grades places it below the midpoint relative to other districts in Maricopa County, according to the comparison data available.
Math proficiency across all tested grades was reported as a combined rate that is low. The multi-year trend data shows only a single year of reported results for both math and English language arts, so no meaningful change over time can be assessed. A parent should be aware that the suppressed data means the school is small enough that the state withholds results to protect student privacy. This is common in very small schools, but it also means a family cannot see a full, transparent picture of how each grade is performing in core subjects. A parent may want to contact the school directly to ask for more detail on how students perform in reading and math across the grade levels, and how the school supports students who are behind.
The data showed no information on programs such as gifted education, career and technical education, or arts offerings. It also did not include information on chronic absenteeism, discipline rates, staff qualifications, or class sizes. The district brief turned up no major recent changes or initiatives for this single-school district, aside from routine school board elections and a modest property tax rate adjustment, none of which appear to be a lasting shift in direction. For a family considering this school, the key open questions are around academic support inside the classroom and how the school addresses the gap between current performance and grade-level expectations, since the available numbers suggest that the majority of students in several tested areas are not yet meeting proficiency standards. The setting works for a family seeking a very small, rural school environment in an unincorporated desert community where the school itself is the main civic anchor.
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