The top reported proficiency rate is 55% in Math. The lowest is 45% in English language arts.
Original Research by School Decision on Morgan Maxwell School
Morgan Maxwell School serves students from prekindergarten through eighth grade as a regular public school within Tucson Unified District. It sits in central Tucson, a major desert city whose economy is anchored by the University of Arizona, Davis-Monthan Air Force Base, and technology industries. The school draws from a neighborhood where housing values and rents place it in a mid-range position relative to the wider Tucson market, though those figures have softened in recent months. The wider context families should know is that Tucson Unified continues to operate under a federal desegregation order, the Unitary Status Plan, which shapes magnet placement, student assignment, and transportation. Voters recently renewed a district override that funds art, music, physical education, full-day kindergarten, and class-size reduction. At the same time, TUSD has seen a notable enrollment decline over recent decades, a trend that has led to ongoing discussions about school utilization and possible facility closures.
The academic picture at Morgan Maxwell is incomplete in a way that may leave a parent with questions. The state assessment results for the most recent school year show that for the fourth grade, proficiency rates in both math and reading were reported and fell below the halfway mark. For the other tested grades, the state suppressed the results, likely due to small testing group sizes. The school’s overall proficiency index, which averages performance across tested subjects and grades, places it in the top quarter among districts in Pima County. That is a strong comparative position within the county. However, the multi-year trend data available covers only the single most recent year, showing a very low proficiency rate in reading and a similarly low rate in math, with no meaningful change between what appear to be adjacent grade levels. Because the trend is drawn from only two data points within the same school year, a parent may want to ask the school directly for a fuller set of results across multiple years to understand whether the pattern holds steady or fluctuates.
The school does not serve high school grades, so there is no graduation rate to report. Science results were suppressed for both the fifth and eighth grades, again most likely because of small group sizes. The pattern of suppressed data across multiple grades and subjects means that a large share of the school’s state testing record is opaque from the outside, and families may want to speak with school staff about what day-to-day academic growth looks like in those classrooms.
Enrollment is best described as modest for a PK-8 campus. The student body is heavily Hispanic, with smaller shares of white, American Indian or Alaska Native, Black, Asian, and multiracial students. Data on students receiving special education services or English learner supports was not available in this record, so a parent should confirm directly what programs are in place. The school is not a charter or magnet school; it is a regular public school, meaning it follows the district’s general assignment and boundaries, though TUSD’s desegregation plan may offer some choice options for families.
The Tucson setting itself is a large, spread-out city where daily life is automobile-dependent outside the downtown and university core. The school’s location on West Anklam Road places it in a residential area of the city, not in the dense central core. Families considering the school should factor in commute patterns and the district’s enrollment trends, since future consolidation decisions could affect the school’s longer-term stability. Morgan Maxwell offers a single-site path from early childhood through middle school, which can appeal to families who want continuity before high school, and its proficiency index relative to the county is a legitimate bright spot, though the gap between that index and the raw grade-level numbers in the available data is something a parent would want to explore.
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