Garner Middle, San Antonio TX - Test Scores & Data

Original Research by School Decision on Garner Middle

Garner Middle School sits on Harry Wurzbach Road in San Antonio's northeast corridor, part of North East ISD. It serves sixth through eighth grade as a conventional public middle school, drawing from a student body that is predominantly Hispanic, with Black and white students each making up a smaller share of enrollment. The school is mid-sized for a three-grade middle school. A very large share of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, placing this squarely in a high-need economic context. Data on English learner counts and students with IEPs was not available in the source material.

The STAAR results are the clearest thing a parent needs to sit with. Texas reports proficiency at three thresholds: approaches grade level, meets grade level, and masters grade level. Across all tested subjects combined, roughly two-thirds of Garner students reach the approaches threshold, which is the floor for grade-level work under Texas standards. But the share reaching the meets standard, the more demanding middle tier, drops to about a third, and masters is a small fraction. Those gaps mean the majority of students are working at or near the minimum passing threshold rather than demonstrating solid grade-level command.

Math tells the most uneven story. Sixth-grade math proficiency is low, seventh-grade math is lower still, and eighth-grade math shows a meaningful jump, though it remains a minority of students. ELA runs consistently stronger than math across all three grades, with eighth-grade reading reaching close to half of students at the proficient-or-above level. Science in eighth grade and social studies in eighth grade split in opposite directions: science sits near the same range as eighth-grade ELA, while social studies proficiency is quite low, among the weakest results in the dataset. Trend data covers only a single year, so there is no trajectory to read here. A parent would be well-served asking the school directly how they support students who are approaching but not yet meeting grade level, and what intervention looks like in seventh-grade math specifically.

Relative to the other districts in Bexar County, Garner's overall proficiency index sits below the midpoint of the comparison set. That is a factual position in the county landscape, not a verdict, but it is worth knowing.

No graduation rate applies here because Garner does not serve high school grades. Program offerings were not reported in the data provided. Civil rights and discipline data were also absent from the source material.

On housing, the zip code around Harry Wurzbach carries home values well above the Texas statewide midpoint and above the national average, with rents that are modestly below the estimated mortgage payment for a typical purchase in the area. Prices have been roughly flat over the past year. San Antonio as a whole is one of the fastest-growing metros in the country, publicly reported as having added more residents than any other U.S. metro area in 2024, with new home and apartment construction ranking among the highest nationally. The northeast side, where Garner sits, is part of the more established suburban fabric of the city rather than its newest fringe growth edges like Stone Oak or Alamo Ranch.

North East ISD operates a number of magnet and specialty programs across the district, including publicly reported options like the International School of the Americas, though those are separate campuses. No district-level strategic changes or specific updates to Garner itself surfaced in the research; the district brief notes the search was exhausted before confirming any recent lasting changes.

What this picture adds up to: Garner is a high-poverty urban middle school where most students arrive at or near grade level by the most basic Texas measure but where demonstrated mastery is uncommon, and where math performance, especially in seventh grade, warrants close attention. Families who prioritize academic acceleration or whose students are already working well above grade level should ask specific questions about how the school serves that population. Families with students who need steady, grade-level support in a school that knows economic challenge well will find a large peer community in similar circumstances.

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Academic performance

How students perform on state tests, by grade, set against the district.

Math

Grade 617%

School 17% · District 40% · ▼ 23 pts below district

▼ 17 pts below state median · ▼ 14 pts below county median

Grade 79%

School 9% · District 19% · ▼ 10 pts below district

▼ 18 pts below state median · ▼ 5 pts below county median

Grade 835%

School 35% · District 50% · ▼ 15 pts below district

▼ 7 pts below state median · ▲ 10 pts above county median

English language arts

Grade 636%

School 36% · District 56% · ▼ 20 pts below district

▼ 16 pts below state median · ▼ 8 pts below county median

Grade 732%

School 32% · District 52% · ▼ 20 pts below district

▼ 17 pts below state median · ▼ 11 pts below county median

Grade 846%

School 46% · District 59% · ▼ 13 pts below district

▼ 9 pts below state median · ▼ 1 pts below county median

Science

Grade 848%

School 48% · District 55% · ▼ 7 pts below district

▲ 6 pts above state median · ▲ 13 pts above county median

Social studies

Grade 814%

School 14% · District 33% · ▼ 19 pts below district

▼ 10 pts below state median · ▼ 4 pts below county median

This schoolNORTH EAST ISD, same grade

Graduation rate (ACGR) reflects the federally published Adjusted Cohort Graduation Rate for the most recent year available. We refresh this data annually at the close of each academic year in June. The federal source publishes a banded rate (for example, "90-94%") instead of an exact number for cohorts small enough to risk identifying individual students. The state distribution chart, where shown, plots every school in the state with a published rate or band; schools whose rate is federally suppressed are excluded. Where the federal source publishes a band rather than an exact rate, the school is placed within its band using a stable, ID-derived offset, so its position is consistent across visits.

Proficiency by household income

English language arts

Grade 6Lower-income31%Higher-income64%33 pp gap

Grade 7Lower-income32%Higher-income36%4 pp gap

Grade 8Lower-income41%Higher-income65%24 pp gap

Mathematics

Grade 6Lower-income15%Higher-income33%18 pp gap

Grade 7Lower-income7%Higher-income16%9 pp gap

Grade 8Lower-income31%Higher-income51%20 pp gap