The top reported proficiency rate is 55% in English language arts. The lowest is 25% in Math.
Original Research by School Decision on Cien Aguas International
Cien Aguas International is a charter school in southeast Albuquerque serving kindergarten through eighth grade. It sits on Randolph Road in the city's SE quadrant, an area anchored by Sandia National Laboratories and Kirtland Air Force Base. Albuquerque is New Mexico's largest city, sprawling across mesas and valley floors with the Rio Grande running through its center. The school's location places it in a part of town where federal installations, residential neighborhoods, and commercial corridors mix together. Getting around this section of Albuquerque generally means driving, as the city is built wide and low-density outside a few walkable nodes like Old Town, Downtown, and the Nob Hill corridor near the University of New Mexico.
The school serves a predominantly Hispanic student body, with a very large majority of its enrollment identifying as Hispanic. A small minority of students are white, and the remaining racial and ethnic groups each represent a handful of children or fewer. A substantial share of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, pointing to a community where many families are working within tight household budgets. The enrollment is moderate for a K-through-8 charter, with fairly even distribution across grade levels, so classrooms are not concentrated in one age band. Data on English learners and students with individualized education programs was not available, so we cannot characterize those populations here. A parent wanting to understand special education services or language supports would need to ask the school directly.
On state assessments, the academic picture is mixed. English language arts stands out as a clear strength. The proficiency rate in ELA for grades three through eight is well above what most New Mexico schools post, and it is the school's brightest academic signal. Reading and writing appear to be getting real attention. Mathematics tells a different story. The math proficiency rate across the same grade band is low, with only about a quarter of tested students reaching proficiency. Science results, drawn from a smaller tested group, land in a similar lower range. These are plainly stated results, not a verdict. A parent may want to look into how the school approaches math instruction and what interventions or supports are available for students who are below grade level.
No multi-year trend data was available, so we cannot say whether these results are improving, holding steady, or declining. This is a single-year snapshot, and that is a limitation worth naming.
Because Cien Aguas International does not serve high school grades, there is no graduation rate to report. That metric does not apply to this grade band. The school also has no state-reported data on discipline, course access, staffing ratios, or attendance, so those dimensions of school life cannot be described from the available information. The school's charter status means it operates with its own governing board rather than under the direct curricular control of Albuquerque Public Schools, though it is geographically within that district's boundaries. We looked for recent district-level policy or program changes that might affect charter families and found nothing publicly reported in the available search results, so we left that out rather than guess.
Housing in the school's zip code sits near the national midpoint for home values and modestly above the state benchmark. Renting is notably more affordable than carrying a mortgage at current interest rates, with the estimated monthly mortgage running higher than typical rent by a meaningful margin. For families considering the area, that gap means rental housing near the school may be the more accessible entry point. The broader city has promoted affordable housing initiatives on its government homepage, and the local economy draws on federal research labs, healthcare, the university, and a growing film and media sector.
What Cien Aguas International appears to offer is a focused, smaller-community K-through-8 pathway with a strong reading orientation and a Hispanic-majority peer environment in a working-class corner of southeast Albuquerque. The ELA results suggest the school is doing something effective in literacy. The math results suggest room for growth, and the absence of trend, staffing, and program data means a family would need to visit and ask questions to fill in the picture the numbers do not provide.
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