Mountain View, Waddell AZ - Test Scores & Data

Original Research by School Decision on Mountain View

Mountain View is a regular public school serving prekindergarten through eighth grade in Waddell, a far western Maricopa County community that is gradually being absorbed by the expanding cities of Surprise and Glendale. It belongs to Dysart Schools, the district that underwent a major grade reconfiguration in 2021–22, turning several elementary campuses into middle schools and altering feeder patterns, and then rebranded from Dysart Unified School District a year later. Parents moving into this area should note those changes, as they affect which school a child attends as they move from elementary to middle school.

On state assessments, Mountain View’s overall proficiency across tested subjects and grades places it above the midpoint when compared with other districts in Maricopa County. That is a genuine strength for a school serving a broad K–8 range. But the picture is uneven when you look grade by grade. In math, proficiency rates are highest among fourth graders and lowest among seventh graders, with most other grades falling somewhere in between. Fourth grade also stands out in English language arts, where a clear majority of students met the proficiency bar; third grade and fifth grade show weaker results, with fewer than half proficient. In science, tested at grades five and eight, the eighth-grade cohort performed noticeably better than the fifth-grade one. The overall trend data, spanning three recent years, suggests that while the school holds its own against county peers, a parent would want to ask the principal about the dips in middle-school math and primary-grade reading to understand what supports are in place.

The student body is made up of roughly equal proportions of White and Hispanic children, together making up the vast majority, with smaller shares of students who identify as two or more races, Black, Asian, Native American, or Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander. Economic disadvantage data was not reported, and neither were counts of students with disabilities or English learners, so a parent seeking those specifics should ask the school directly. The school’s Title I status was also not available.

Waddell itself is an unincorporated area without a traditional downtown; its original townsite never developed, and civic life is centered on the broader municipal services of Surprise and Glendale. The area is car-dependent, with residential lots that are often large and sometimes include equestrian properties. The White Tank Mountains are close, offering multi-use trails for hiking, biking, and horseback riding, and the White Tank Regional Library opened a number of years ago as a community anchor. Housing values in the area are above the state median, and the local market, like much of the region, has seen modest recent shifts. Rents also run above typical national levels Mendoza, making this a moderately costly place for families to settle, though still below the hottest parts of the Phoenix metro.

Because Mountain View ends at eighth grade, there is no graduation rate to report, and the school does not offer the high-school-level pathways that some larger K–12 campuses do. No information was available about course offerings, advanced programs, discipline rates, or chronic absenteeismstead. For a family looking for a solid, above-average performing K–8 school in a growing semi-rural edge of the Phoenix suburbs, Mountain View fits that description, provided the grade-level variability in test scores does not raise concerns. The district's recent reconfiguration means that the middle school experience here may have changed in recent years, so talking to current families would be wise.

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Academic performance

How students perform on state tests, by grade, set against the district.

Math

Grade 354%

School 54% · District 46% · ▲ 8 pts above district

▲ 10 pts above state median · ▲ 8 pts above county median

Grade 461%

School 61% · District 30% · ▲ 31 pts above district

▲ 17 pts above state median · ▲ 14 pts above county median

Grade 538%

School 38% · District 30% · ▲ 8 pts above district

▼ 4 pts below state median · ▼ 8 pts below county median

Grade 648%

School 48% · District 33% · ▲ 15 pts above district

▲ 12 pts above state median · ▲ 8 pts above county median

Grade 731%

School 31% · District 27% · ▲ 4 pts above district

▼ 1 pts below state median · ▼ 2 pts below county median

Grade 842%

School 42% · District 37% · ▲ 5 pts above district

▲ 10 pts above state median · ▲ 8 pts above county median

English language arts

Grade 343%

School 43% · District 41% · ▲ 2 pts above district

▲ 3 pts above state median · ▼ 1 pts below county median

Grade 466%

School 66% · District 40% · ▲ 26 pts above district

▲ 19 pts above state median · ▲ 16 pts above county median

Grade 544%

School 44% · District 33% · ▲ 11 pts above district

▲ 3 pts above state median · even with county median

Grade 654%

School 54% · District 46% · ▲ 8 pts above district

▲ 11 pts above state median · ▲ 9 pts above county median

Grade 755%

School 55% · District 50% · ▲ 5 pts above district

▲ 12 pts above state median · ▲ 10 pts above county median

Grade 855%

School 55% · District 51% · ▲ 4 pts above district

▲ 15 pts above state median · ▲ 13 pts above county median

Science

Grade 540%

School 40% · District 43% · ▼ 3 pts below district

▲ 3 pts above state median · ▲ 1 pts above county median

Grade 851%

School 51% · District 42% · ▲ 9 pts above district

▲ 18 pts above state median · ▲ 16 pts above county median

This schoolDysart Unified District (4243), same grade

Graduation rate (ACGR) reflects the federally published Adjusted Cohort Graduation Rate for the most recent year available. We refresh this data annually at the close of each academic year in June. The federal source publishes a banded rate (for example, "90-94%") instead of an exact number for cohorts small enough to risk identifying individual students. The state distribution chart, where shown, plots every school in the state with a published rate or band; schools whose rate is federally suppressed are excluded. Where the federal source publishes a band rather than an exact rate, the school is placed within its band using a stable, ID-derived offset, so its position is consistent across visits.