Schools in Cottonwood

The first thing to sort out is what kind of school each of these is, because the four are not the same kind of thing.

Mountain View Preparatory School and Cottonwood Community School are public schools, both running kindergarten through eighth grade. Cottonwood Community is on East Mingus Avenue. Neither is a charter; they are district schools, which means enrollment follows the district’s boundaries and rules.

American Heritage Academy - Cottonwood is a charter school, and it runs kindergarten through twelfth grade, so it is the only one of the four that carries on past eighth. Charters are publicly funded and free to attend, but they enroll independently of district boundaries, often with an application window and a waiting list. The academy also has a Camp Verde campus, which is a separate school with its own record.

Cottonwood Educational Services on North Willard Street is an educational services office rather than a school you enroll a child in day to day.

Where the real comparison lives

We hold the grade range, the address and the phone number. We do not hold test scores, ratings or inspection outcomes, and we are not going to imply a ranking from four listings.

The Arizona Department of Education publishes a report card for every public and charter school in the state, with achievement, growth, attendance and demographic data. That is the comparison worth making, and it covers things a directory cannot: how the same school has moved over several years, and how it sits against others serving similar intakes.

For high school, note that this list stops at the academy. The district high school serving Cottonwood is not on this page, which reflects what we have published rather than what exists, and is the kind of gap worth telling us about through the correction link on any listing.