The reported proficiency rate for English language arts is 29%.
Original Research by School Decision on Santa Clara Elementary School
Santa Clara Elementary School is a regular public school in Tucson’s Sunnyside Unified District, serving kindergarten through sixth grade. The school sits on South Santa Clara Avenue, in a southern part of Tucson that is largely residential and automobile-dependent, within a city defined by the University of Arizona campus, Davis-Monthan Air Force Base, and a sprawling desert geography.
The student body is diverse. The largest group is Hispanic students, who make up the majority of the enrollment, followed by a smaller share of American Indian or Alaska Native students. White students and students identifying as two or more races each account for small portions of the population, and the school also enrolls a very small number of Black students. Asian and Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander students are not represented in the enrollment data. The school does not report data on the share of students who qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, nor on the share of students with disabilities or English learners, so a family would want to ask the school directly about these support services.
Santa Clara is a neighborhood elementary that feeds into Sunnyside’s middle and high schools. It is not a charter or magnet school. The grade-by-grade enrollment is relatively balanced across the grades, suggesting a stable pipeline of students.
On state academic assessments, the available results show a challenging picture. The school’s proficiency rates in both English language arts and math across the tested grades place it below the midpoint relative to other schools in Pima County. In math, the reported proficiency rate for all tested students was in the single digits, and in English language arts it was in the low twenties. Some grade-level results in both subjects were suppressed due to small group sizes, meaning the full picture is incomplete. Science assessment results for fifth grade were also suppressed. A parent reviewing this data would want to talk with the school about its academic supports, intervention strategies, and what the trajectory looks like for students moving into middle school.
Because Santa Clara serves only through sixth grade, it does not report a graduation rate.
Housing in the school’s immediate area, based on the ZIP code, is priced below the Arizona state median home value, making it a relatively more affordable pocket within the Tucson metro. Rents sit around the national rent-to-income benchmark. Home values in the ZIP code have seen a very slight year-over-year decline.
The Sunnyside Unified District, which oversees Santa Clara, reported a revenue mix in a recent fiscal year with portions coming from federal, state, and local sources. The district brief included no other details on capital projects, program shifts, or leadership changes, so a parent may want to check the district’s own communications for current priorities.
For a family considering this school, the main takeaway is a regular elementary school in a diverse, lower-cost Tucson neighborhood where state test results indicate room for academic growth. The school’s student composition and setting are straightforward. The soft spots in proficiency are real and worth investigating directly with the school to understand what support is in place for students who are below grade level in reading and math.
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