MERCEDES EARLY COLLEGE ACADEMY
MERCEDES · TX · MERCEDES ISD · Public
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TRIUMPH PUBLIC HIGH SCHOOLS-MERCEDES → MERCEDES H S → SOUTH TEXAS ISD HEALTH PROFESSIONS → SOUTH TEXAS ISD SCIENCE ACADEMY → MERCEDES ACADEMIC ACADEMY → MERCEDES DAEP → SOUTH PALM GARDENS H S → WESLACO EAST H S →📋 At a glance
- 📚 1 AP courses offered — Moderate
- ✅ Dual-enrollment program (college credit while in HS)
- ✅ Gifted & talented program
- 🎓 AP rigor: Bottom 44% of US high schools
- 📝 SAT/ACT participation: 61th percentile by test-taker volume
Composed from federal CRDC offerings, EDFacts ACGR, and other public data. Full breakdowns below.
How MERCEDES EARLY COLLEGE ACADEMY compares for families
Solid mid-tier academic profile.
- ▸ LocallyTX students outperform the US average on NAEP 8th-grade math (+4 points).
- ▸ vs Similar SchoolsThe closest comparables nearby: TRIUMPH PUBLIC HIGH SCHOOLS-MERCEDES, MERCEDES H S, SOUTH TEXAS ISD HEALTH PROFESSIONS and 5 more. See the sidebar to compare side-by-side.
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🎓 Academic rigor
AP + advanced-course offerings
Moderate — some AP / advanced course access
Bottom 44% of US high schools
✅ Gifted/talented program
Source: federal Civil Rights Data Collection (CRDC 2020-21). CRDC reports what's offered + enrolled — it doesn't collect AP exam pass rates (College Board owns that data and doesn't release it school-level).
SAT / ACT participation
CRDC federal data · 2020-2161th percentile by test-taker volume
Source: federal Civil Rights Data Collection (CRDC 2020-21). Volume — not score — is what's reported here. A higher count means more students at this school are entering the college admissions pipeline. Note: 2020-21 was COVID-disrupted; some districts (especially those that stayed remote longer) report unusually low or zero takers.
👩🏫 Teacher workforce · federal CRDC
Teacher experience & reliability
Source: federal Civil Rights Data Collection (CRDC 2017-18 — the most recent vintage that publishes per-school teacher quality fields; the 2020-21 sweep had them suppressed). "Inexperienced" = teachers in their first or second year. "Chronic absence" = teachers absent 10+ days/year.
🏛️ Federal Title I context
High-poverty school
Title I Schoolwide eligible
≥75% of students qualify for free/reduced lunch. These schools qualify for the highest tier of federal Title I funding and typically receive extra wraparound services. Academic outcomes vary widely — check the state assessment + grad-rate tiles.
Source: NCES Common Core of Data, free/reduced-price lunch eligibility. The actual Title I designation is a district decision and may differ from eligibility — but the federal eligibility math is what we show here. We don't claim to assert whether the district formally chose to enroll this school in Title I.
Chronic absenteeism
Why this matters to enrollment: A low chronic-absence rate is the cleanest school-level signal of strong family connection, classroom culture, and student engagement — all upstream drivers of enrollment stability. For school leaders: an Enrollment Trend Audit traces this dynamic forward →
Source: U.S. Department of Education, Civil Rights Data Collection 2020–2021. Rate = students chronically absent ÷ 2024 total enrollment.
Counselor capacity
Source: U.S. Department of Education, Civil Rights Data Collection 2020-2021. Counselor ratio = the school's most recent total enrollment ÷ counselor FTE. The American School Counselor Association (ASCA) recommends a 250:1 maximum; the US national median across schools with on-staff counselors is roughly 430:1.
Enrollment trend & projection
Total enrollment + grade 12, NCES Common Core of Data (2021–2024).
If the recent trend holds…
At its recent rate of -2.6%/year, projecting from 2024's 355 students:
≈ 44 fewer students by 2029 — a real revenue/relevance risk worth getting ahead of.
An extrapolation of the recent trajectory, not a forecast of the school's plans; ignores one-off shocks.
Revenue at risk
At $15,698 per student in district revenue, the 44 students projected to be lost by 2029 represent ≈ $690,712/year in funding at risk.
District total revenue ÷ enrollment, NCES F-33. Public funding largely follows enrollment, so a shrinking class is a recurring budget hit.
Nearby high schools — the local competition
The closest high schools families here also consider, and where their enrollment is heading.
| School | Type | Miles | HS enrollment | Trend |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| TRIUMPH PUBLIC HIGH SCHOOLS-MERCEDES MERCEDES |
Public · charter | 0.6 | 109 | -2.7% |
| MERCEDES H S MERCEDES |
Public | 0.9 | 903 | -10.3% |
| SOUTH TEXAS ISD HEALTH PROFESSIONS MERCEDES |
Public | 1.4 | 781 | +4.7% |
| SOUTH TEXAS ISD SCIENCE ACADEMY MERCEDES |
Public | 1.4 | 840 | +9.9% |
| MERCEDES ACADEMIC ACADEMY MERCEDES |
Public | 1.6 | 100 | +56.2% |
| MERCEDES DAEP MERCEDES |
Public | 1.6 | — | — |
| SOUTH PALM GARDENS H S MERCEDES |
Public | 2.0 | 72 | +9.1% |
| WESLACO EAST H S WESLACO |
Public | 3.1 | 2,066 | +5.8% |