Original Research by School Decision on Evit - Highland High School
EVIT - Highland High School is a career and technical school located in Gilbert, one of the large, fast-growing suburban communities southeast of Phoenix. Gilbert has transformed from an agricultural town into a sprawling, master-planned suburb, with single-family subdivisions, wide arterial roads, and commercial corridors. The town’s Heritage District offers a small historic downtown with restaurants and civic buildings, but the overall texture is car-dependent suburban development. Gilbert’s explosive growth over recent decades has made it a major suburban city, though the pace has slowed, and it continues to be served by multiple school districts.
This school is part of the East Valley Institute of Technology (EVIT), a district that operates career and technical education programs across the East Valley. The school itself is housed on the campus of Highland High School, a traditional public high school in the Gilbert Public Schools district. The pairing means that students enrolled at EVIT - Highland High School attend their academic classes at their home high school and come to this EVIT campus for specialized career training. The school serves grades nine through twelve and is classified as a career and technical school.
The enrollment at EVIT - Highland High School is very small, a single student reported in the data. This reflects the nature of a specialized program track within a larger high school, where students are counted through the EVIT system for their career and technical coursework but remain enrolled at their home high school for general education and graduation. The student body reported is one student, identified as white. Information on the share of students who qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, receive special education services, or are English learners was not available from the data provided.
Because this is a career and technical school, state assessment results were not available for this entity. The comparison to other districts in Maricopa County was not applicable for proficiency, graduation rate, or chronic absenteeism, as the school operates outside the typical accountability framework for a comprehensive high school. A parent looking for test scores and graduation data for this program should understand that those outcomes are reported through the student’s home high school, not through this EVIT campus.
The housing market in Gilbert is characterized by home values that are above the national benchmark, with rents that have seen a modest decline recently. The town’s major employers include the Gilbert Public Schools, Banner Health, and the Town of Gilbert, along with healthcare, defense, and professional services firms. The school is located on Guadalupe Road, in the central part of Gilbert, close to the Loop 202 freeway and a short drive from the Heritage District and the town’s commercial corridors.
For a family considering this school, the key point is that it is not a standalone high school. It is a career and technical program that operates as a pathway within a larger high school. Students who attend are simultaneously enrolled in their home high school, which issues their diploma. The EVIT program offers specialized training in various career fields, though specific program offerings were not listed in the provided data. This setup can be a good fit for a student who knows they want to pursue a trade or technical career and wants to gain certifications or hands-on experience while completing their high school coursework. The fit depends on whether a student’s home high school participates in the EVIT program and whether the student’s desired career pathway is offered at this particular campus. Without data on specific programs, a family would want to verify what career tracks are available at this EVIT campus before making decisions. The very small reported enrollment is a function of how the data is counted, not an indication of the program’s size or quality, and reflects that most students remain counted at their home high school.
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