The top reported proficiency rate is 34% in English language arts. The lowest is 20% in Math.
Original Research by School Decision on Carlos Rey Elementary
Carlos Rey Elementary sits on Cerrillos Road in the southwest quadrant of Albuquerque, serving students from pre-kindergarten through fifth grade as part of Albuquerque Public Schools. It is a regular public school with no charter or magnet designation. The campus draws from a predominantly Hispanic student body, with a small scattering of students from other racial and ethnic backgrounds. Virtually every student at the school qualifies for free or reduced-price lunch, which speaks to the economic context of the surrounding neighborhood on Albuquerque's southwest side.
On state assessments for the most recent reported year, Carlos Rey's results show a clear gap between subjects. English language arts is the relative bright spot, with roughly a third of tested students reaching proficiency. Science sits in the middle range, and math is the softest area, with fewer than one in five students scoring proficient or above. These are single-year snapshots; no multi-year trend data was available, so it is not possible to say whether performance is improving, declining, or holding steady. A parent weighing this school may want to ask about the instructional supports in place for math and what the school's improvement plan looks like.
The tested cohort across grades three through eight was sizeable, which gives the proficiency figures a reasonable foundation. Average scale scores were not reported, and participation rates were not available, so the picture is limited to the proficiency rates alone. The school does not serve high school grades, so there is no graduation rate to report. Data on English learner status and special education enrollment was not provided, nor were figures on attendance, discipline, staffing, or course access, so those dimensions of the school environment remain undescribed here.
Albuquerque itself is New Mexico's largest city, a sprawling and car-oriented place organized into four quadrants by Central Avenue and the railroad tracks. The southwest quadrant, where Carlos Rey is located, is generally more working-class than the heights and foothills to the northeast. The city's civic anchors include the Rio Grande bosque running through its center, Petroglyph National Monument on the West Mesa, and the Sandia Mountains to the east. Old Town preserves the original Spanish villa plaza pattern. The local economy is anchored by federal installations like Sandia National Laboratories and Kirtland Air Force Base, the University of New Mexico, Presbyterian Healthcare Services, and a growing film and media sector that includes a Netflix production hub. The city's population has been roughly flat to slightly declining in recent years.
For families considering the area around Carlos Rey, housing is relatively affordable compared with both state and national benchmarks. Home values in the school's zip code sit well below the state median, and rents are modest, with a slight recent dip. Estimated monthly mortgage costs run higher than typical rents, which means renting may be the more accessible option for many families in this neighborhood. The price-to-income ratio suggests moderate strain for buyers, though less severe than in many parts of the country.
No program offerings were listed for Carlos Rey, so it is not possible to describe specialized academic pathways, extracurricular activities, or extended-day options from the available data. Title I status was not reported, though given the near-universal free or reduced-price lunch eligibility, the school almost certainly receives Title I funding; that detail simply was not confirmed in the data provided. No neighbor comparison data was available, so Carlos Rey cannot be positioned against nearby schools here.
We looked for recent district-level changes at Albuquerque Public Schools that might affect families, such as policy shifts, curriculum updates, or funding measures, but the search returned no results, so that context is left out rather than guessed at.
What the available data paints is a school serving a high-need community in a working-class part of a large, spread-out city, with literacy outcomes stronger than its math outcomes and a student population that is overwhelmingly Hispanic and economically disadvantaged. Families considering Carlos Rey would benefit from visiting the campus, asking about math intervention strategies, and learning what supports exist for students who are still building English proficiency, since neither English learner nor special education data was available to characterize those populations here.
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