The top reported proficiency rate is 24% in English language arts. The lowest is 0% in Science.
Original Research by School Decision on Mcdermott El
McDermott Elementary sits on USAA Boulevard in San Antonio's northwest side, part of Northside ISD, serving children from pre-kindergarten through fifth grade. The school's location in a corridor anchored by major employers like USAA reflects the kind of mixed suburban growth that has defined San Antonio's outer rings over the past generation.
The student body is genuinely diverse. Hispanic students make up roughly half the enrollment, Asian students form a meaningful share, and Black, white, and multiracial students make up the rest. A substantial majority of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, which signals that despite the school's address in a commercially active part of the city, many families here face real economic pressure. English learner counts were not available in the data.
Academic results on the Texas STAAR assessments are a clear soft spot, and a parent considering this school should go in with eyes open. Across tested grades and subjects, proficiency rates are low, and the school's overall proficiency index sits in the bottom quartile relative to districts in Bexar County. Math is particularly challenging: at the tested grade levels, only a small fraction of students reached the meets-grade-level standard, and the fifth-grade Spanish-version math and science cohorts, which are quite small, showed no students reaching proficiency at all. Reading and ELA results are somewhat stronger in relative terms but still well below what most families would consider grade-level mastery. The share of students reaching the masters-grade-level threshold across all subjects is very thin. It is worth noting that a number of the tested groups are small, particularly those taking the Spanish-language STAAR, so those results reflect a handful of students and carry more statistical uncertainty than the larger English-tested cohort. A parent would be well served by asking the school directly about its reading intervention programs, bilingual or dual-language supports, and how student progress is tracked year to year.
Multi-year trend data was not available, because only the most recent year is in the data set. Whether performance has been stable, declining, or showing signs of movement cannot be determined from what was provided.
The school operates as a regular public school with no charter or magnet designation. No information was available on special programs, staffing ratios, discipline data, or chronic absenteeism, so that fuller picture of the school environment remains a gap a visiting parent would need to fill through direct conversation with the principal or front office.
On the housing side, the zip code surrounding the school sits below the Texas statewide median home value and well below the national median, making it one of the more accessible entry points into Northside ISD relative to other parts of the metro. Rents have dipped modestly year over year. San Antonio broadly continues to grow, adding more residents in recent years than nearly any other metropolitan area in the country, and publicly reported data places the city among national leaders in both new home and new apartment construction. That growth context matters for school families because enrollment shifts and facility pressures are a real feature of fast-growing districts.
No parent-relevant changes for Northside ISD were surfaced through research, so that section of the picture is simply absent rather than quiet by choice.
McDermott is a neighborhood elementary with a diverse, largely economically stressed student body in a growing part of San Antonio. The academic numbers as reported are below the county midpoint across the board, and a family weighing this school should ask the school specific questions about how it supports students who arrive with language needs or academic gaps, since those are the central challenges the data reflects.
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