The top reported proficiency rate is 24% in English language arts. The lowest is 12% in Science.
Original Research by School Decision on Rhodes Junior High School
Rhodes Junior High School serves grades seven through nine as a regular public school in the Mesa Unified District, the largest district in Arizona’s third-largest city. Mesa itself is a sprawling, overwhelmingly auto-oriented suburban city, and Rhodes sits in the older, denser western portion, a part of town closer to Tempe that has a notably different feel from the newer subdivisions pushing east. The school’s enrollment of several hundred students places it at a mid-sized scale for a junior high, drawing from surrounding residential neighborhoods along a corridor of strip commercial and wide arterial roads.
The student body is majority Hispanic, with a substantial share of students identifying as white, a smaller but present group of American Indian or Alaska Native students, and smaller numbers of Black, Asian, Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander, and multiracial students. This composition reflects the demographics of West Mesa, an area with a long-established and diverse population. Data on the share of students qualifying for free or reduced-price meals, the number of students with an individualized education program, and the count of English learners were not available in the data reviewed. A parent may want to ask the school directly about these support structures, as they often shape the daily experience in a school of this size and composition.
State assessment results for the most recent testing year show that proficiency rates in both math and English language arts were well below the midpoint of districts in Maricopa County. Across tested subjects and grades, the school’s overall proficiency index placed it in the bottom quartile of the sizable cohort of county districts. In seventh-grade math, roughly one in ten students met the state’s proficiency bar, and in eighth-grade math the figure was somewhat higher but still low. In English language arts, about a quarter of seventh graders and a slightly smaller share of eighth graders scored proficient. Science results for eighth graders followed a similar pattern. The school has only recently begun to have multi-year trend data, making it difficult to assess whether performance is improving or declining. For a family considering Rhodes, these outcomes are the central fact to weigh.
Because the school serves grades seven through nine, it does not have a graduation rate to report, nor does it report chronic absenteeism data in the available sources. Without those metrics, the close reading of the school’s holding power and attendance patterns is limited. No data was available on course access, discipline rates, or staffing ratios, so a parent may want to visit and ask about the range of electives, the availability of support classes, and how the school manages classroom behavior and safety.
The broader Mesa Unified District did not appear to have any recent major policy shifts or leadership changes that would affect Rhodes in a direct way, based on publicly reported information. The district is large enough that individual school experiences can vary considerably, and Rhodes operates as a neighborhood school within that system. The housing context around the school reflects a moderately priced market for the Phoenix metro area, with home values that have seen a slight year-over-year decline and rents that have edged up modestly, keeping the area relatively accessible compared to pricier parts of Maricopa County.
Rhodes Junior High is a straightforward neighborhood school whose academic results are soft by county standards, set in an older, diverse, and auto-dependent part of a rapidly growing city. Families for whom proximity and a familiar district environment matter most may find it a comfortable fit, but those prioritizing strong state assessment outcomes will want to look into what academic supports and programs the school offers, and perhaps visit to see how the school day operates in practice.
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