Arizona Desert Elementary School, Tolleson AZ

Original Research by School Decision on Arizona Desert Elementary School

Arizona Desert Elementary School serves students from preschool through eighth grade in Tolleson, a small city in Maricopa County that functions primarily as an industrial and distribution employment center for the Phoenix West Valley. The school is part of the Tolleson Elementary District, and families moving into the area should understand that this is a community where the daytime population is heavily shaped by the thousands of people who work in the city’s warehouses, food processing plants, and distribution centers, rather than by a traditional downtown or pedestrian street life. The city’s origins lie at the intersection of 91st Avenue and Van Buren Street, and the school itself is located on Van Buren Street. The district brief showed no evidence of recent referendums, curriculum changes, or property tax shifts, so there is little publicly reported information about what kind of strategic direction the district is pursuing.

The school’s student body is large for a K-8 campus, and the composition is heavily Hispanic, with a much smaller share of Black students and a very small White enrollment. The share of students who qualify for free or reduced-price lunch was not available in the data. This is a peer environment shaped by a predominantly Hispanic student population, which is the plain demographic reality; families may wish to see how the school’s programs and staffing reflect that composition, but the data did not include detailed information on course offerings, English learner services, or special education staffing.

On state testing, the overall pattern across tested subjects and grades lands below the midpoint when placed against districts in Maricopa County. That is a soft spot. In math, the proficiency rates across grades three through eight are modest, with the fourth-grade and seventh-grade results lower than the others. In English language arts, the rates are somewhat higher, though still moderate, with fourth and seventh grades again showing a bit more strength than the upper grades. Science testing in fifth and eighth grades shows similar results. A parent considering this school should treat these figures as a starting point for a conversation with the school about how it supports students who are not yet meeting the state’s benchmark, particularly in math, and what academic interventions are in place across the grade span. The school does not serve high school grades, so there is no graduation rate to report.

The academic data available covers only a single year, so there is no trend to describe. The sixth-grade math result was suppressed, which means the count was small enough that the state did not report it; a parent may want to ask the school directly about that grade’s performance. Because this is a regular public school serving a broad grade span, the absence of any multi-year trend data means it is not possible to say whether achievement is improving, holding steady, or declining.

Housing in the area around the school shows home values and rents that are slightly above the state average, with a year-over-year decline in both purchase prices and rents, a pattern that may reflect broader market conditions rather than anything specific to this school. The ratio of home prices to national median household income is elevated, suggesting that buying here is a stretch for many families, though the estimated rent-to-income ratio is more manageable. The mortgage rate environment at the time of this data was elevated, adding to the cost of entry.

Arizona Desert Elementary is a school where the demographics and testing profile suggest a family might want to do their own legwork. The academic results are not strong compared to other districts in the county, and there is no publicly available information about how the school is working to address that. The district itself did not appear to have any recent public changes worth noting, which may mean the system is stable, or it may mean communication about its direction is limited. For a family weighing this school, the practical next step would be to visit, ask about math instruction across the grades, and inquire about how the school supports students who arrive below grade level. The industrial character of Tolleson means the physical surroundings are dominated by warehouses and truck traffic rather than suburban amenities, which is a characteristic of the setting, not a judgment. The school’s size gives it the potential to offer a range of programs, but the data did not confirm what those are.

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Academic performance

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

Math

Grade 342%

School 42% · District 32% · ▲ 10 pts above district

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

Grade 434%

School 34% · District 22% · ▲ 12 pts above district

▼ 10 pts below state median · ▼ 13 pts below county median

Grade 545%

School 45% · District 24% · ▲ 21 pts above district

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

Grade 725%

School 25% · District 13% · ▲ 12 pts above district

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

Grade 828%

School 28% · District 19% · ▲ 9 pts above district

▼ 4 pts below state median · ▼ 6 pts below county median

English language arts

Grade 335%

School 35% · District 22% · ▲ 13 pts above district

▼ 5 pts below state median · ▼ 9 pts below county median

Grade 448%

School 48% · District 32% · ▲ 16 pts above district

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

Grade 539%

School 39% · District 21% · ▲ 18 pts above district

▼ 2 pts below state median · ▼ 5 pts below county median

Grade 628%

School 28% · District 25% · ▲ 3 pts above district

▼ 15 pts below state median · ▼ 17 pts below county median

Grade 747%

School 47% · District 37% · ▲ 10 pts above district

▲ 4 pts above state median · ▲ 2 pts above county median

Grade 843%

School 43% · District 30% · ▲ 13 pts above district

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

Science

Grade 534%

School 34% · District 19% · ▲ 15 pts above district

▼ 3 pts below state median · ▼ 5 pts below county median

Grade 828%

School 28% · District 24% · ▲ 4 pts above district

▼ 5 pts below state median · ▼ 7 pts below county median

This schoolTolleson Elementary District (4264), 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.