The top reported proficiency rate is 38% in English language arts. The lowest is 24% in Math.
Original Research by School Decision on North El
North El is a prekindergarten-through-fourth-grade elementary school in Plainview, serving a predominantly Hispanic student body in a school of roughly five hundred students. The school sits on Lexington Street in a city that functions as the county seat of Hale County, a rural West Texas area. Most families at North El qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, reflecting broader economic conditions in Plainview, where the population has been slowly declining and the housing stock is older with little recent new construction.
The academic picture at North El shows uneven performance across grade levels and subject areas. In third-grade math, proficiency falls to a low level; fourth-grade math data are sparse because very few students took the Spanish-language version of that test. Fourth-grade English language arts proficiency sits at just above half of students meeting the standard, a meaningful gap. Third-grade English language arts proficiency, measured on the Spanish assessment, is quite low. When state results are grouped across all grades and subjects, looking at cumulative performance tiers, about two-thirds of students are working at the "approaches standard" level or above, about one-third are meeting the standard, and only a small share are working at the "masters" level.
The English language arts data show a clearer picture than math. In fourth grade, where most students take the regular English assessment, about half meet or exceed the state standard. In third grade, where a small number took a Spanish-language test, only a quarter met the standard. The math results are more concerning. Third-grade math proficiency is roughly a quarter of students, and fourth-grade math results do not appear reliable due to minimal testing numbers. Across both subjects, when scores are ranked into performance levels, English language arts has stronger "approaches" performance (about three-quarters of students), while math shows more students at the "approaches" level (about three-fifths) but fewer meeting or exceeding the standard.
The school's proficiency index places it above the midpoint among districts in Hale County, meaning it is performing somewhat better than the median peer district in the county, though the county itself is not widely known for high proficiency across the board. This positioning suggests North El is holding its own locally but reflects the broader academic context of a rural Texas region where proficiency rates are modest.
North El is a regular public school with no special charter or magnet status. The enrollment is steady, with each grade band represented. Hispanic students make up the vast majority of the enrollment; white and other racial groups are present in small numbers. Data on special education enrollment and English learner identification were not available, which may reflect the school's testing or reporting categories or state data limitations. One note: kindergarten and prekindergarten results do not appear in state testing because those grades are not assessed under the Texas state accountability system, so the school's work in those grades is not visible in the proficiency data provided.
Parents considering North El should understand that the school serves a high-poverty student population in a community where housing is affordable and where economic opportunity has shifted over the last decade. The school's academic results show particular work needed in mathematics and in building higher proficiency levels beyond the "meets" category. The fourth-grade English results suggest some students are making progress, but the third-grade results, especially in the small Spanish-language cohort, suggest that language transitions or language-specific instruction may be areas for a parent to ask the school about directly. A parent weighing enrollment would benefit from discussing the school's reading and math support systems, how it serves dual-language learners, and what progress monitoring looks like across these grade bands.
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