Hawthorne Pk-8 Academy, San Antonio TX

Original Research by School Decision on Hawthorne Pk-8 Academy

Hawthorne PK-8 Academy is a neighborhood school in San Antonio serving kindergarten through eighth grade, housed on West Josephine Street in the city's early-learning and middle-grades band. The school enrolls a small population, heavily concentrated in the upper elementary and middle grades, with a substantial portion of students qualifying for free or reduced lunch. The student body is predominantly Hispanic, with smaller populations of Black, White, and multiracial students.

The school sits within San Antonio ISD at a moment of significant district transition. In late 2023, the district voted to close a substantial number of schools as part of a long-term enrollment decline response, and by the start of the following school year, a meaningful share of families affected by those closures had not returned to the district. The district is also implementing a standardized curriculum across campuses, replacing campus-by-campus variation with a common approach to math and reading instruction that emphasizes phonics-based literacy teaching. These shifts reshape the instructional environment district-wide and the neighborhood school landscape families navigate.

On state testing, Hawthorne's results are mixed and show considerable variation by grade and subject. In English language arts, performance is stronger at the sixth and eighth-grade levels, where roughly half of tested students meet or exceed proficiency, and at fourth grade, where approaching half do so. Seventh grade ELA sits lower, though still at roughly the midpoint. Reading and language skills on Spanish-language assessments at third and fifth grades show very modest proficiency, though the number of Spanish-tested students is quite small.

Mathematics proficiency is the weaker area overall. Sixth and seventh grades show particularly low proficiency rates, with seventh-grade math proficiency in single digits. Eighth grade improves modestly. Third-grade math on the Spanish assessment showed moderate proficiency but on a tiny cohort. The school's overall proficiency index, which averages performance across tested subjects and grades, places it above the midpoint among Bexar County school buildings, a position grounded primarily in its ELA strength at grades six and eight and its science and social studies results at eighth grade, where a quarter to just under a third of students meet proficiency.

Science proficiency in eighth grade is around one-quarter, and social studies at that same grade sits at just under one-third. The school has limited testing data at fifth-grade science and does not report results at all grade bands where testing occurs. No historical trend data was available, so it is not possible to tell whether these results reflect recent movement or have been stable.

Demographic context matters here. The school serves a neighborhood where housing values are moderate and rentals are accessible, reflecting San Antonio's broader position as an affordable, fast-growing city with substantial new construction in both market-rate and affordable categories. The school's enrollment is predominantly low-income, which aligns with its inner-city location and the district's urban footprint. About half of the metro apartments built in recent years have concentrated in the southern part of the region, suggesting development pressure pushing away from the central core where Hawthorne sits.

A parent choosing this school should expect an elementary-to-middle pipeline within a single building, a neighborhood school in a predominantly Hispanic, low-income area of San Antonio, and exposure to a standardized district curriculum that emphasizes structured literacy instruction. The school's ELA strength in upper elementary and middle grades is a concrete asset; the mathematics proficiency gaps, especially in the middle grades, are a soft spot a parent may want to explore further with the school directly. Overall results are unremarkable relative to the county district cohort and reflect the academic challenges common to many urban, high-poverty schools in Texas. The school's fit depends on family priorities around neighborhood schooling, curriculum philosophy, and tolerance for the district upheaval and rightsizing process now in motion.

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Academic performance

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

Math

Grade 338%

School 38% · District 30% · ▲ 8 pts above district

▼ 2 pts below state median · ▲ 4 pts above county median

Grade 627%

School 27% · District 16% · ▲ 11 pts above district

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

Grade 77%

School 7% · District 9% · ▼ 2 pts below district

▼ 20 pts below state median · ▼ 7 pts below county median

Grade 819%

School 19% · District 21% · ▼ 2 pts below district

▼ 23 pts below state median · ▼ 6 pts below county median

English language arts

Grade 313%

School 13% · District 35% · ▼ 22 pts below district

▼ 33 pts below state median · ▼ 25 pts below county median

Grade 447%

School 47% · District 32% · ▲ 15 pts above district

▼ 2 pts below state median · ▲ 5 pts above county median

Grade 648%

School 48% · District 33% · ▲ 15 pts above district

▼ 4 pts below state median · ▲ 4 pts above county median

Grade 743%

School 43% · District 34% · ▲ 9 pts above district

▼ 6 pts below state median · even with county median

Grade 849%

School 49% · District 34% · ▲ 15 pts above district

▼ 6 pts below state median · ▲ 2 pts above county median

Science

Grade 825%

School 25% · District 26% · ▼ 1 pts below district

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

Social studies

Grade 829%

School 29% · District 10% · ▲ 19 pts above district

▲ 5 pts above state median · ▲ 11 pts above county median

This schoolSAN ANTONIO 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 5Lower-income40%Higher-income76%36 pp gap

Grade 6Lower-income43%Higher-income78%35 pp gap

Grade 7Lower-income35%Higher-income73%38 pp gap

Grade 8Lower-income43%Higher-income68%25 pp gap

Mathematics

Grade 6Lower-income20%Higher-income67%47 pp gap

Grade 7Lower-income3%Higher-income29%26 pp gap

Grade 8Lower-income13%Higher-income46%33 pp gap