The top reported proficiency rate is 23% in Science. The lowest is 22% in English language arts.
Original Research by School Decision on East Midvale School
East Midvale School is an elementary school serving kindergarten through fifth grade in the Canyons School District, located in the Salt Lake County city of Midvale. It is a traditional public school, not a charter or magnet, and its enrollment places it in the mid-range for an elementary building. The student body is diverse: the largest single group identifies as Hispanic, with a substantial share of White students and smaller but visible populations of students who are Black, Asian, Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander, American Indian or Alaska Native, and multiracial. More than two-thirds of students come from households with incomes low enough to qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, making the school a high-poverty site by that measure.
State testing on Utah’s RISE assessment provides a picture of academic performance that families will want to weigh carefully. In the most recent results, proficiency rates in math, English language arts, and science all fell below a quarter of students tested, placing East Midvale in the bottom quartile for overall proficiency when compared with other elementary schools across Salt Lake County districts. This is a significant soft spot. The data available does not include student subgroup breakdowns or participation rates, so a parent may want to ask the school directly how performance varies by population and how many students were actually tested. The school serves only early and middle elementary grades, so there is no graduation rate to report, and chronic absenteeism data was also missing from the record.
Midvale itself is a suburban Salt Lake Valley city that has seen substantial redevelopment in recent decades, particularly on its western edge where a former Superfund site was cleaned up and transformed into the Bingham Junction area, now home to corporate offices, housing, and entertainment. The city has a historic downtown along Main Street and is served by two TRAX light rail lines with three stations, a level of transit access that is unusual for the region. Housing in the area is priced at a level that is moderate relative to the broader Salt Lake County market, though affordability remains a common concern—rent consumes a sizeable share of typical household income, and buying a home generally requires a higher income than renting. The city has a mix of older neighborhoods and newer developments from the Bingham Junction and Jordan Bluffs projects, giving families a range of housing stock.
The Canyons School District, which operates East Midvale, approved a significant bond in 2023 to rebuild and renovate aging schools, fund safety upgrades, and improve infrastructure. The district structured the bond so that it would not increase the property tax rate, using expiring debt service to cover the new payments. This means that over the coming years, families in the district can expect physical improvements to school buildings, though the timeline for East Midvale specifically was not detailed in the available materials.
For a family considering East Midvale, the picture is mixed. The school serves a highly diverse student population and sits in a district that has made a concrete commitment to upgrading its facilities. Academic proficiency, however, is low by county standards, and the available data does not give a full view of how different groups of students are faring or how much progress the school is making over time. The surrounding community offers transit connections, redevelopment momentum, and a range of housing, but the school’s test results are a clear area where parents will want to ask further questions about instruction, intervention, and support.
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