The top reported proficiency rate is 22% in English language arts. The lowest is 20% in Math.
Original Research by School Decision on M Rivas Pri Discovery Academy
M Rivas Pri Discovery Academy sits on South Hutto Road in Donna, Texas, serving pre-kindergarten through second grade as part of Donna ISD. Because it serves only the earliest primary grades, a family encountering this school is looking at the foundation years, and several things follow from that context.
The student body is entirely Hispanic, which mirrors Donna's character as a predominantly Mexican-American community in southeastern Hidalgo County. The school draws a community where Spanish is as commonly heard as English, and the STAAR assessments on record were administered in Spanish for most tested cohorts, which tells you something about the linguistic environment the school is navigating. The vast majority of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, reflecting the economic profile of the surrounding neighborhood. Donna itself is an affordability-driven, car-dependent small city, with home prices well below the state and national benchmarks, a housing market that has been appreciating modestly, and an economy rooted in agriculture, public-sector employment, and cross-border trade along the Expressway 83 corridor.
On academic performance, the data available is limited and should be read carefully. State testing in Texas begins at third grade, so the core pre-K through second-grade population at this school is not yet captured in state assessments. The proficiency data that does appear in the record reflects a small number of students who were tested at grades three, four, and five, almost certainly children who passed through this school and were tested later or were present in the building during a transitional period. Those tested groups are quite small, and the proficiency results in both reading and math are low. Placed against districts in Hidalgo County, the school's overall proficiency index falls in the bottom quartile of that comparison set. The tested groups are genuinely small, which limits how much weight a single year's result can carry, but the pattern across subjects is consistent enough that a parent would be reasonable to ask Donna ISD directly about reading and math outcomes as children move into the tested grades.
What the data does not provide is information on English learner identification rates or services, special education supports, chronic absenteeism, or specific instructional programs. The school name includes "Discovery Academy," which publicly reported information does not further explain in terms of a defined curriculum model or magnet designation. A parent interested in understanding what "Discovery" means programmatically would want to ask the campus directly.
The district brief search did not return confirmed recent changes at Donna ISD, so program shifts or facility updates are not described here rather than guessed at.
For a family in Donna enrolling a pre-K or kindergartner, this school represents the neighborhood primary option within the district. The academic signals available from the small older-grade cohorts point to challenges that carry into tested grades, and that is worth a direct conversation with the school about how it builds foundational literacy and numeracy before children reach the STAAR years.
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