St. Johns district highlights board meeting, celebrates A grades

St. Johns Unified School District paired its A-grade update with a July 9 board meeting and a summer staffing calendar that begins Aug. 3 for new teachers. The district's home page also set Aug. 4 for returning teachers and transportation staff and Aug. 6 for all staff.

SJUSD schools earned A grades for 2025, including St. Johns Middle School's A rating. Arizona's A-F letter grades are part of the state accountability system and are built from annual achievement profiles that include proficiency, growth and other measures. St. Johns Middle School is a grade 4-8 district school with Title I status and an enrollment of 311 students.

The board meeting fit into a regular governance schedule for the five elected members of the St. Johns Unified School District board. Meetings are normally held the first Thursday of each month at 6:30 p.m. in the SJUSD Board Room unless otherwise posted, and agendas are posted 24 hours in advance at the district office, Apache County Library and Apache County Annex Building. The contact phone number is (928) 337-2255.

St. Johns Unified District serves preschool through grade 12 from 450 S. 13th W. in St. Johns and has four schools. A June 6, 2025 SJUSD year-end note said high school ACT and Pre-ACT scores were higher than in any of the previous four years, K-8 combined ELA and math proficiency improved from 2023-2024 to 2024-2025, and the district was one of only 600 districts nationally and one of the top five in Arizona to receive an exceptional-district label for math achievement relative to socioeconomic status. SJUSD also said it had the lowest chronic-absentee rates in the area.

Apache County was created Feb. 24, 1879. St. Johns serves as the county seat, and county boundaries extend into parts of the Navajo Nation and the Fort Apache Indian Reservation.