State-wide school letter grades were announced in the last week of October, for the 2024-2025 academic year.
Cottonwood
Both the Cottonwood school districts, Cottonwood-Oak Creek District and Mingus Union High School District, earned a B letter grade.
Three of the four elementary schools, Cottonwood Community School, Dr. Daniel Bright Elementary School and Oak Creek Elementary School all earned Bs. The fourth, Mountain View Preparatory School, earned an A.
Mingus Union High School, the largest public school in the Verde Valley, maintained the B grade that it’s been graded at since the COVID-19 pandemic, when school letter grades were paused. The year before COVID-19 emerged, MUHS scored a C.
Last year, the high school had a four-year graduation rate of 82.91% while the district rate was 81.38% and the state rate was 77.86%.
The English Language Arts proficiencies for the previous year were 45% minimally proficient, 30% partially proficient, 18% proficient and 7% highly proficient.
Math was 42% minimally proficient, 34% partially, 16% proficient and 8% highly proficient. Science was 5% highly proficient, 22% proficient, 47 partially and 26% minimally proficient.
The high school is fed by the Cottonwood Oak-Creek School District, Clarkdale-Jerome School District and Beaver Creek School District and private and charter schools.
Mingus Union also was recognized by the College Board as a top 50 school for College Level Examination Program tests.
“CLEP testing is a pathway to earn college credits while still in high school or the military based upon student performance on an examination recognized by over 3,000 colleges. It is the most used test of it’s kind. Our Mingus students earned a whopping 768 college credits through CLEP testing,” a recent email sent to Marauder families said.
Clarkdale-Jerome
The Clarkdale-Jerome Elementary School, the only school in its district, earned a B letter grade. It maintained its grade from the previous year.
In the previous year, 11% of the school’s students were ranked highly proficient overall in English Language Arts, 36% were proficient, 22% were partially proficient and 31% were minimally proficient. In math, they were ranked 35% minimally proficient, 32% partially, 24% proficient and 8% highly. Science had more proficient students at 45%, 38% were partially proficient, 12% were minimally and 8% were highly proficient.
Camp Verde
The Camp Verde Unified School District scored a C overall.
Both Camp Verde Elementary School and Camp Verde Middle School earned a C; Camp Verde High School earned a B; and the online Camp Verde Accommodation School earned a C.
Last year, CVES earned a B, CVMS earned a C and CVHS earned an A.
English Language Arts statistics for the high school was 37% minimally proficient, 29% partially, 30% proficient and 4% highly proficient. Math had the same highly and partially proficient scores, but proficient was at 19% and minimally proficient was 48%.
Science scores were not marked last year.
Grading System
“A” to “F” school letter grades are the state accountability model used annually to measure school performance.
The system measures year-to-year student academic growth and proficiency in:
- English language arts, math and science
- The proficiency and academic growth of English language learners
- Indicators that elementary students are ready for success in high school and high school students are ready for success in a career or higher education and
- High school graduation rates
According to the Arizona State Board of Education website:
- A is excellent: Distinguished performance on the statewide assessment, significant student growth, high four-year graduation rates, students on track to proficiency; overall performance is significantly higher than state average.
- B is highly performing: High performance on statewide assessment and/or significant student growth and/or higher four-year graduation rates and/or moving students to proficiency at a higher rate than the state average.
- C is performing: Adequate performance but needs improvement on some indicators, such as proficiency, growth or graduation rate.
- D is minimally performing: Inadequate performance in proficiency, growth and/or four-year graduation rate relative to the state average.
- F is failing: Systematic failures in proficiency
Schools have until Monday, Nov. 17, at 5 p.m. to appeal their letter grades.
Schools who appeal will be marked as “under review” until the Arizona State Board of Education takes action on appeals at its January meeting. Depending on the outcome of the appeals, school letter grades may change.
In high schools across the state before appeals, 117 earned an A grade, 94 earned a B, 16 earned a C and one earned D and F.
K-8 schools earned 469 A letter grades, 536 Bs, 282 Cs, 41 Ds and 13 Fs.
Hybrid schools are schools serving grades across both the K-8 model and the 9-12 model.
Hybrid schools earned 60 As across the state, 43 Bs, 29 Cs, 4 Ds and 1 F.
Local Education Agencies are school districts and charter schools that operate public schools overall.
These also get letter grades.
