Original Research by School Decision on Jose De Diego Aguadilla
Josede Diego Aguadilla sits in the northwestern Puerto Rican municipality of Aguadilla, a place that blends residential neighborhoods, industrial zones, and a tourism economy built around its coastline. The town is the core of the Aguadilla-Isabela-San Sebastián metropolitan area, with manufacturing in rubber, plastics, leather, textiles, steel, wood, machinery, and food processing alongside an airport that anchors regional transit. Publicly reported sources describe Aguadilla as having more beaches than any other municipality on the island, with surfing spots like Crash Boat and Wilderness, plus recreational anchors such as Las Cascadas Water Park and the Caribbean's only ice skating complex. The traditional downtown, barrio Pueblo, follows the classic Puerto Rican municipal pattern of a central plaza, church, and government buildings, with El Parterre Square and its historic Ojo de Agua spring serving as civic landmarks.
The school itself serves kindergarten through eighth grade and operates within the Puerto Rico Department of Education. It is not a charter school. Enrollment is small for a school covering this many grade levels, with the student body spread fairly evenly across grades, though the upper grades tend to have more students than the early ones. The school community is entirely Hispanic, consistent with the broader population of Aguadilla and Puerto Rico. A very large share of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, reflecting the economic conditions of the surrounding community. Aguadilla has experienced a continuing population decline, and the municipality has weathered serious disruption from Hurricane Maria and earthquake damage in recent years, which shapes the context in which this school operates.
Academic performance data was not available in the records we reviewed. There are no state assessment results, no multi-year trend data, and no nationally standardized academic context to draw from. This means we cannot characterize how students at Jose de Diego Aguadilla perform relative to the island or to similar schools. A parent considering this school may want to ask the school directly about recent test results and academic progress. The absence of results here should not be read as a judgment on the school's quality; it reflects a gap in the data we had access to rather than a finding about performance.
Because the school stops at eighth grade, there is no graduation rate to report. That metric does not apply to an elementary-and-middle school configuration. Students completing eighth grade here would move on to a high school elsewhere in the Puerto Rico public system.
Several other data points that help parents understand a school were also missing. We found no information on special education enrollment or English learner counts, no staffing or class-size data, no discipline records, no attendance figures, and no details about course offerings or specialized programs. The school's Title I status, magnet status, and specific locale classification were not provided. Without these, it is harder to say what supports exist for students with disabilities, what the teaching environment looks like, or whether the school offers any enrichment beyond the standard curriculum. A parent may want to look into these areas further with the school or the district office.
We searched for recent parent-relevant changes in the Puerto Rico Department of Education and found limited specific information, so we left that out rather than guess. The district brief did not surface new policy shifts, program launches, or structural changes that would bear directly on a family's decision about this school.
What the available information does convey is a school embedded in a municipality with a distinct identity, one shaped by its coastline, its industrial base, and a long civic history. Aguadilla's population has been shrinking, and the community has absorbed repeated natural disasters, which can affect school funding, staffing stability, and student needs over time. For a family weighing Jose de Diego Aguadilla, the most useful next step would be to visit the school or contact its administration to fill in the academic, programmatic, and support details that the available records do not carry.
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