The top reported proficiency rate is 49% in English language arts. The lowest is 31% in Math.
Original Research by School Decision on Del Norte Elementary
Del Norte Elementary sits on North Garden Avenue in Roswell, the county seat of Chaves County and a mid-sized micropolitan city in southeastern New Mexico. It is a regular public school in the Roswell Independent School District serving kindergarten through fifth grade. The school draws from a community where the economy blends UFO-themed tourism along Main Street with agriculture, dairy manufacturing, petroleum-related activity, and regional healthcare. Leprino Foods operates a large mozzarella plant in town, and Eastern New Mexico University-Roswell and the New Mexico Military Institute add an institutional layer. The city maintains several dozen parks and walking trails, though the built environment is spread out and auto-oriented rather than dense and walkable. Population in Roswell has been drifting downward in recent years, and the trajectory leans on tourism and food manufacturing rather than rapid suburban expansion.
On state assessments from the most recent school year, Del Norte's results paint a mixed picture. In English language arts, roughly half of tested students reached proficiency, which stands as the school's relative bright spot. Math and science were weaker, with about a third of students proficient in each. Only one year of assessment data is available, so there is no trend to read. A parent evaluating these results may want to look into how the school supports students who are below proficiency, particularly in math, and what intervention or tutoring structures are in place. Participation rates and average scale scores were not reported in the data provided.
The student body is predominantly Hispanic, with a smaller white population and very small numbers of students from other racial and ethnic backgrounds. Every student at Del Norte qualifies for free or reduced-price lunch, which places the school fully in the category of serving an economically disadvantaged community. This is a characteristic that shapes the school's resource needs and the kinds of support it must provide. Data on students with individualized education programs and English learners was not available, which is a gap a parent might ask about directly. A school serving this population often has a substantial share of English learners given the demographic profile, but the provided data does not confirm that.
Housing in the school's zip code is affordable relative to both state and national benchmarks. Typical home values sit well below the state and national medians, and rents are modest. The price-to-income ratio is low, and the rent-to-income ratio is manageable, meaning families in the area face less pressure on housing costs than in many parts of the country. That said, Roswell's slow population decline and absence of major new housing development suggest the neighborhood around the school is stable rather than changing quickly.
Information on Title I status, discipline practices, course offerings, staffing ratios, and attendance was not provided. The same is true for any special program offerings such as dual language, gifted services, or after-school enrichment. We searched for recent district-level changes that might affect families, such as curriculum shifts, bond referendums, or property-tax adjustments, and found little of lasting impact reported publicly, so we left that out rather than guess.
What the available evidence does say is this. Del Norte is a neighborhood elementary school in an affordable, culturally distinct micropolitan community, serving an almost entirely economically disadvantaged and predominantly Hispanic student population. Its English language arts results are the strongest part of its academic profile, while math and science proficiency remain low. For a parent weighing this school, the most productive next step would be asking school leadership about math intervention, English learner support, special education services, and any enrichment or extended-learning programs that supplement the regular school day. The data here provides the outline; the school can fill in the rest.
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