Original Research by School Decision on South Mountain Preparatory Academy
South Mountain Preparatory Academy is a small public charter school in Phoenix serving kindergarten through third grade. The school is located on East Southern Avenue in the southern part of the city, an area of Phoenix that is heavily car-oriented with wide, gridded roadways. Because the school serves only the early elementary years, most families at this stage are looking at where their child will begin their formal education rather than considering high school outcomes such as graduation rates, which do not apply here.
The student body is small, enrolled across kindergarten through third grade. The largest share of students is in the kindergarten class, with enrollment stepping down through the higher grades. The school serves a predominantly Hispanic student population, with smaller shares of Black students, American Indian or Alaska Native students, White students, and students identifying as two or more races. Data on the share of students who qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, the share receiving special education services, and the share identified as English learners were not reported in the available data, so a parent may want to ask the school directly about which support programs are available.
On state testing, the Arizona Academic Standards Assessment (AASA) was administered to third and fourth graders. Because the school serves only through third grade, it tested a small number of third graders in both math and English language arts, and a similarly small number of fourth graders in both subjects. The proficiency results for all tested groups were suppressed by the state, meaning the tested-student counts were too low for the state to publish reliable rates. This is common for very small schools and does not indicate a particular outcome; it simply means there is not enough data to draw a meaningful conclusion about academic performance from these results. A comparison to other districts in Maricopa County was not possible for the same reason.
The school is operated by the Kaizen Education Foundation under the name Advance U, a single-school charter district. The district brief turned up no recent parent-relevant changes or notable developments. For a family considering this school, the central facts are that it is a very small, early-elementary charter in a large, sprawling city, with a predominantly Hispanic student body, and that no public testing data is available to gauge academic performance. A parent looking at South Mountain Preparatory Academy will want to visit, talk to staff about curriculum and supports, and get a sense of the school culture directly, since the public record offers little else.
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