The top reported proficiency rate is 38% in Math. The lowest is 37% in English language arts.
Original Research by School Decision on Silvestre S Herrera School
Silvestre S Herrera School serves students from preschool through eighth grade in the Phoenix Elementary District, located on the south side of the city near Sky Harbor International Airport. It is a regular public school, not a charter.
The student body is predominantly Hispanic, with smaller shares of Black, American Indian, and white students. The enrollment is about the size you would expect for a PK-8 school in a dense urban area, with a fairly even spread across grade levels from kindergarten through sixth grade, then slightly smaller numbers in seventh and eighth grade. Data on how many students qualify for free or reduced-price meals and how many receive special education services or are English learners was not available, so a parent should ask the school directly about those support structures.
On state assessments, the picture is mixed, and there is enough missing data to make a full read difficult. In math, results were reported for third and fourth grade only; proficiency was moderate in third grade but noticeably lower in fourth grade. Fifth through eighth grade math results were suppressed, which often reflects small testing group sizes and means the state does not release a rate. In English language arts, fourth grade proficiency was reported at a modest level. Third, fifth, sixth, seventh, and eighth grade ELA results were also suppressed. In science, both fifth and eighth grade results were suppressed. The school’s proficiency index, a composite of reported rates across tested subjects and grades, placed it below the midpoint relative to other districts in Maricopa County. Because so many grade-level results are suppressed, the full picture of student performance is incomplete. A parent likely wants to ask the school for more detailed internal assessment data or growth measures.
Because Silvestre S Herrera School ends at eighth grade, there is no graduation rate to report, and no data on chronic absenteeism was available. No information was provided on course access, program offerings, or staffing.
The school sits in Phoenix, a large sprawling city that grew rapidly over the past several decades and remains a major population and economic center in the Mountain West. The economy spans high-technology, manufacturing, tourism, and services. Sky Harbor International Airport is a key regional transportation hub and sits close to the school’s neighborhood. Housing values in the immediate area are well below the state benchmark, and rents have softened recently, making this one of the more affordable parts of metro Phoenix. The city’s built environment is car-oriented with wide roadways on a grid, and the school’s location near the airport and industrial corridors means the surrounding area mixes residential, commercial, and industrial land uses.
No recent district-level changes such as bond measures, boundary shifts, or curriculum updates were found in publicly reported materials, so the context around district priorities or upcoming shifts is not available. A parent looking into this school should fill in several gaps: what student support services exist given the lack of reported special education and English learner data, what academic programming is available beyond core instruction in older grades, and how the school measures growth given that many state test results are suppressed.
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