The top reported proficiency rate is 28% in Science. The lowest is 12% in Math.
Original Research by School Decision on Mccollum Elementary
McCollum Elementary sits on San Jacinto Street in Albuquerque's Northeast Heights, serving pre-kindergarten through fifth grade as part of Albuquerque Public Schools. It is a regular public school, not a charter or magnet, and it draws from a neighborhood in a sprawling, car-oriented city quadrant where residential streets fan out toward the Sandia Mountains to the east.
The school's enrollment is modest for its grade band. Its student body is predominantly Hispanic, with a substantial White minority and smaller groups identifying as two or more races, American Indian or Alaska Native, Black, and Asian. Nearly every student qualifies for free or reduced-price meals, which points to a community where economic need is widespread. The school does not report IEP or English-learner counts, so families wanting to understand special-education or language-support services would need to ask the school directly.
On the most recent state assessments, McCollum's results were weak across all tested subjects. Math proficiency was especially low, with only a small fraction of tested students reaching proficiency. English language arts was higher but still reflected a minority of students meeting the benchmark. Science results were similar to ELA. These are single-year results, and the data does not include prior years, so there is no way to tell from the available information whether performance is improving, holding steady, or declining. A parent evaluating this school may want to look into this further with the administration, asking what intervention strategies are in place and how growth is tracked for individual students.
Because McCollum serves only pre-kindergarten through fifth grade, it has no graduation rate, no AP or career-pathway data, and no high school course offerings to report. Those gaps reflect the grade band, not an omission. The school does not appear in any special designation, magnet, or alternative category that would place it outside standard accountability.
Albuquerque itself is New Mexico's largest city, a place defined by its quadrants, the Rio Grande bosque running through its center, and the Sandia Mountains framing its eastern edge. The Northeast Heights, where McCollum is located, is a broadly residential area built out across the mesa, with strip-commercial arterials connecting neighborhoods. The city's economy rests on federal installations like Sandia National Laboratories and Kirtland Air Force Base, the University of New Mexico, healthcare systems, and a growing film sector anchored by a Netflix production hub. Albuquerque Public Schools is one of the larger districts in the country, operating schools across all quadrants.
The housing market around McCollum's zip code is moderate by national standards. Typical home values sit below the national benchmark and roughly in line with the state overall, while rents are relatively affordable. Renting costs meaningfully less per month than carrying a mortgage at current rates, which may matter to families deciding whether to rent or buy in the area. Median household income figures suggest a working- and middle-class community context, consistent with the near-universal free-lunch eligibility at the school.
We looked for Albuquerque Public Schools policy, curriculum, or budget changes that might affect families and found little in the available research, so that material is left out rather than guessed.
What the data describes is a small, high-need elementary school in an established Northeast Heights neighborhood, serving a largely Hispanic student population in a community where most families are working within modest economic means. State test results are low across subjects, with no trend available to indicate direction. The surrounding city offers broad civic and cultural resources, from Old Town and the bosque to UNM and the Sandias, and the immediate neighborhood is a quiet residential pocket within that larger urban spread. For a family weighing this school, the central questions are academic: how the staff supports students who are below proficiency, what growth looks like for individual children, and what the school is doing to move those numbers. The data here gives the starting point for that conversation but not the answers.
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