Schools in Amarillo, TX: A Complete Guide to Districts, Campuses, and Ratings

Amarillo is served by five public school districts, two charter networks, and four established private schools. The district boundaries do not follow city limits, neighborhood names, or any intuitive landmark — which means the single most important school decision a homebuyer makes here happens at the address level, not the neighborhood level. Here is the full picture.

The five districts at a glance

Two districts dominate the conversation for homebuyers. Amarillo ISD is the largest urban school system in the Texas Panhandle. Canyon ISD is the one families most often relocate specifically to access — and critically, it serves a large portion of southwest Amarillo, not just the city of Canyon.

The boundary problem every buyer needs to understand

This is the most consequential thing in this article, so it goes first.

Canyon ISD covers 732 square miles and serves two separate communities. Eight of its campuses sit in south Amarillo, five are in the city of Canyon, and two sit between the two cities. That means a substantial number of homes with an Amarillo mailing address, an Amarillo ZIP code, and an Amarillo property tax bill feed Canyon ISD schools.

Practically, this creates three situations that catch buyers:

1. Two houses on the same street can feed different districts. The line does not follow arterial roads, subdivision boundaries, or city limits.
2. Neighborhood marketing is unreliable. Listing sheets, subdivision websites, and third-party portals all get this wrong regularly — usually by assigning the district that covers most of the area rather than that specific parcel.
3. You may not need to pay the Canyon premium. Canyon's median home price runs meaningfully above Amarillo's. If Canyon ISD is your actual goal, southwest Amarillo may get you there at a lower price with more inventory.

Southwest Amarillo neighborhoods commonly served by Canyon ISD include the Greenways corridor, Westover, and newer construction communities such as Beacon Pointe, Hillside Terrace, and Heritage Hills. Verify each address individually.

Amarillo ISD

Amarillo ISD is the largest school system in the Panhandle, enrolling roughly 28,300 to 30,300 students depending on the reporting source and year, across 52 to 55 campuses. The structure breaks down to approximately 34 to 37 elementary schools, 11 to 12 middle schools, and six high-school-level campuses.

The enrollment decline, and why it matters to buyers

AISD enrollment stood roughly 16% below its 2016 level as of recent state data. That decline drove a consequential decision: in December 2024, the board voted to close the district's three smallest elementary campuses — Park Hills Elementary (174 students), Pleasant Valley Elementary (197), and Sunrise Elementary (196) — consolidating them into paired campuses beginning August 2025.

This is relevant to homebuyers for a reason that is easy to miss: other small campuses may face the same pressure. Other AISD elementaries with enrollment in the same range have included Allen 6th Grade Campus (210), Landergin Elementary (260), Travis 6th Grade Campus (275), Lamar Elementary (279), and Hamlet (281). If you are buying specifically for a small neighborhood elementary, ask the district about its enrollment trend and any consolidation discussion before you commit.

District per-pupil spending has run around $11,802, which places AISD in the lower half of Texas districts by that measure.

Programs worth knowing

• AmTech Career Academy — the district's career and technical education hub, and a major part of AISD's current identity. Programs of study span animal science; architecture, construction and manufacturing; business, marketing and finance; culinary arts; law and public service; media arts; medical arts; STEM and information technology; and transportation. Students can take selected AmTech courses while remaining enrolled at a home campus, so the campus where a student receives specialized instruction may differ from their assigned high school.
• International Baccalaureate — offered at Amarillo High School.
• Amarillo Area Center for Advanced Learning (AACAL) — serves the entire district rather than a single cluster.
• North Heights Alternative School — alternative secondary setting serving the full district.
• Meals — for 2026-27, students who qualify for reduced-price meals receive breakfast and lunch at no cost.

Amarillo ISD high schools compared

Amarillo High School

The district's strongest academic performer and the campus most associated with southwest Amarillo's established neighborhoods. It carries a GreatSchools rating of 6/10, a Niche grade of B+, a 95% graduation rate, an average GPA of 3.72, and average scores of 1210 SAT and 27 ACT. Roughly 57% of students are proficient in math and 76% in reading.

Under Texas Education Agency accountability it earned a B, scoring 92 in student achievement, 89 in school progress, and 82 in closing performance gaps, with 89 in post-secondary readiness. It offers both Advanced Placement and International Baccalaureate, and has earned four GreatSchools College Success Awards since 2018-19.

Tascosa High School

The district's largest high school at roughly 2,208 students, with a GreatSchools rating of 5/10 and a Niche grade of B. Averages run 1110 SAT and 25 ACT, with AP participation around 35%. Tascosa is known for breadth — strong career and technical pathways, athletics, band, and ROTC alongside AP coursework. Student reviews consistently emphasize the range of opportunities available at a campus this size.

Palo Duro High School

Established in 1955, located on the north side at 1400 N Grant Street, enrolling roughly 1,900 to 1,950 students with a 15:1 ratio. GreatSchools rates it 4/10 with a Niche grade of B−. Averages run 1060 SAT and 24 ACT. The campus serves a diverse north Amarillo community, and US News has ranked it ahead of several higher-GreatSchools-rated campuses in the metro — a divergence worth understanding before drawing conclusions from any single rating.

Caprock High School

Located in southeast Amarillo at 3001 SE 34th Avenue, enrolling roughly 2,137 students. GreatSchools rates it 3/10, though Niche assigns a B. Averages run 1050 SAT and 19 ACT. Caprock is organized internally into four "houses," a structure intended to create smaller communities within a large campus. The Caprock cluster feeds from two middle schools and ten elementary schools.

Amarillo ISD feeder patterns

AISD organizes around four comprehensive high school clusters. Each cluster draws from a set of middle schools and elementary schools that promote upward into it.

The Caprock cluster, as a documented example, includes Bowie Middle School and Bowie 6th Grade Campus at the middle level, and elementary campuses including James W. Fannin, Glenwood, Humphrey's Highland, Lamar, Landergin, Lawndale, Oak Dale, Sanborn, Southlawn, and Tradewind. AmTech Career Academy and North Heights Alternative sit within the Caprock geographic area but serve the entire district rather than one cluster.

The practical point for buyers: identify your target high school first, then work backward. Find which elementary feeds your intended middle school and which middle school feeds your intended high school, then search for homes inside that elementary zone. Working the other direction — finding a house, then discovering the feeder pattern — is how families end up with a twelve-year commitment they did not choose.

AISD publishes current feeder assignments, and they are the authoritative source. Third-party school-search sites frequently reflect outdated boundaries, particularly after the 2025 elementary consolidations.

Canyon ISD

Canyon ISD is the district families most frequently relocate to access, and it is consistently regarded as the strongest in the region. It covers 732 square miles across Randall County, serving both the city of Canyon and a large portion of south and southwest Amarillo. District demographics run approximately 58.1% white with 32.7% of students economically disadvantaged — a materially lower economic-disadvantage rate than AISD, which is a significant driver of the performance gap between the two.

Canyon ISD high schools

Randall High School sits inside Amarillo city limits despite being a Canyon ISD campus — the clearest illustration of the boundary issue. It opened in 1988, enrolls roughly 1,080 students at a 13.9:1 ratio, and carries a State accountability rating of B. AP participation runs around 34%. Facilities include a dedicated industry building with shops for architecture and agriculture programs, plus 14 tennis courts and a full athletic complex.

West Plains High School opened in August 2022, built specifically to relieve overcrowding at Randall. It welcomed roughly 948 students on its first day and has grown to about 1,220, running a 15.4:1 ratio. Student reviews emphasize athletics and breadth of clubs and course offerings. Because it is new, families in the surrounding area should verify current attendance zones rather than relying on pre-2022 information.

Canyon High School serves the city of Canyon and carries the strongest third-party marks among the district's comprehensive campuses.

Canyon ISD campuses located in Amarillo

These are the campuses that create the Amarillo-address, Canyon-ISD situation:

Campuses in the city of Canyon include Canyon Intermediate School (506 8th Street) and Crestview Elementary (80 Hunsley Road), among others. Canyon ISD also operates a Disciplinary Alternative Education Program in Canyon and the Youth Center of the High Plains at 9300 South Georgia in Amarillo.

One documented feeder example: homes in the River Falls acreage community southeast of Amarillo attend Sundown Elementary, Greenways Intermediate, Westover Park Junior High, and Randall High School.

Bushland ISD

Bushland ISD is a small 4A district west of Amarillo along I-40, serving roughly 1,500 students across three campuses — an elementary school, a middle school, and a high school. It is a genuine relocation driver: families move to Bushland and the surrounding acreage specifically for the district, and that demand supports property values in an area that would otherwise be priced purely on land.

The appeal is what small districts typically offer — low student-to-teacher ratios, a single K-12 community where families know the staff, and students progressing through school with the same cohort. The trade-off is the range of programs a district this size can offer relative to AISD's AmTech network or Canyon ISD's scale.

Highland Park ISD

Highland Park ISD serves northeast Amarillo and is worth knowing for two reasons: the outcomes and the location.

Highland Park High School, at 15300 Amarillo Blvd E, enrolled 224 students as of recent state data and earned a Texas Education Agency accountability rating of A (district-wide rating: B). It posts a 100% four-year graduation rate against a statewide 90.3%, with a grades 9-12 dropout rate of 0.4%. Average SAT is 1044 and average ACT 21.7. Teachers average 13.2 years of experience, above both the district and statewide averages.

The district issues each student a MacBook Air in grades 9-12 and an iPad in grades PreK-7.

Location matters here for a specific buyer profile: the Highland Park area sits convenient to Pantex, Bell Textron, the Amazon facility, and the airport. Acreage tracts in the area are frequently marketed on exactly that commute. For families working at those sites who want land and a small-district environment, this is the combination that does not exist elsewhere in the metro.

River Road ISD

River Road ISD serves north Amarillo with roughly 1,300 students total — about 400 at River Road High School and approximately 900 across its elementary and intermediate campuses. Like Bushland and Highland Park, it offers a small-district environment with the tighter community and lower ratios that implies.

Charter schools

Amarillo has a modest charter presence:

• Amarillo Collegiate Academy — the strongest-performing charter option locally, ranked 633rd in Texas by US News, with roughly 26% of students economically disadvantaged.
• Premier High School of Amarillo — part of the Premier High Schools network.
• Richard Milburn Academy Amarillo — alternative education focused.

An honest caveat: independent analysis has found that Premier and Richard Milburn face high dropout rates and weaker overall performance relative to the traditional public schools in the area. These campuses largely serve students who have struggled in traditional settings, which affects the metrics — but families should look at the outcome data directly rather than assuming charter status implies stronger performance.

Private schools

Private school tuition in Amarillo runs well below comparable schools in Dallas or Austin, which changes the calculus for families who would be priced out of private education in a larger metro. Enrollment is limited and waitlists exist at some campuses — inquire well before your move date rather than after closing.

Higher education

• Amarillo College — public community college enrolling over 10,000 students across seven campuses. It has a strong regional reputation for workforce and transfer programs, and dual-credit partnerships with area high schools make it a meaningful part of the K-12 picture.
• Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center at Amarillo — programs in medicine, nursing, pharmacy, pharmaceutical sciences, and physical therapy. A significant part of why Amarillo's healthcare infrastructure exceeds what its population would predict.
• West Texas A&M University — in Canyon, 15 minutes south, with roughly 10,000 students. Brings athletics, arts programming, and cultural events to the region.

How to read the ratings — and what they miss

Three rating systems appear in this guide, and they measure different things. Understanding the difference prevents bad decisions.

The systems frequently disagree, and Amarillo shows this clearly. Palo Duro carries a GreatSchools rating of 4/10 but ranks ahead of several higher-GreatSchools campuses in the US News metro rankings. Caprock rates 3/10 on GreatSchools but earns a B from Niche. These are not errors — they are different questions being answered.

What ratings do not capture

• Program fit. A student headed into welding, culinary, or health sciences may be far better served by AmTech access than by a higher composite rating.
• Socioeconomic correlation. Composite ratings track economic disadvantage closely. AISD's economically disadvantaged rate substantially exceeds Canyon ISD's, and much of the performance gap between the districts follows that line rather than reflecting instructional quality.
• Individual teachers and specific programs. A strong band program, debate team, or AP track exists at the campus level and does not move a district average.
• Campus variation within a district. This is the big one in Amarillo. AISD's district composite sits around 6.4 on one independent scale, but its top elementary rates 9.1 on the same scale. The district average tells you very little about any specific school.

What homebuyers should actually do

1. Verify the district and campus assignment by exact address with the district registrar — not from a listing, a portal, or a subdivision website. This is the single highest-value fifteen minutes in an Amarillo home search.
2. Work backward from the high school. Pick the high school, trace the feeder pattern to the middle and elementary zones, then search inside those boundaries.
3. Check whether Canyon ISD reaches your target neighborhood. If the district is your motivation, southwest Amarillo may deliver it below Canyon's price point with more inventory.
4. Ask about enrollment trends at small elementary campuses. AISD closed three small elementaries in 2025 and others sit in a similar enrollment range.
5. Confirm attendance zones post-date recent construction. Canyon ISD has opened multiple campuses recently, redrawing boundaries. Pre-2022 information is unreliable in the West Plains and Randall Junior High areas.
6. Look at the campus, not the district average. Variation between campuses inside AISD is far wider than variation between districts.
7. If you want private school, inquire before you close. Enrollment is limited and some campuses maintain waitlists.

Frequently asked questions

What is the best school district in Amarillo, TX?

Canyon ISD is consistently regarded as the strongest district serving the Amarillo area, and it serves a large portion of southwest and south Amarillo in addition to the city of Canyon. Bushland ISD and Highland Park ISD are strong small-district options — Highland Park High School holds a TEA accountability rating of A with a 100% four-year graduation rate.

What is the best high school in Amarillo?

Among Amarillo ISD campuses, Amarillo High School leads with a GreatSchools rating of 6/10, a Niche grade of B+, a 95% graduation rate, average SAT of 1210 and ACT of 27, plus International Baccalaureate and AP programs. Canyon ISD's Canyon High School and Randall High School perform strongly, and Highland Park High School posts the highest TEA accountability rating in the area.

What are the GreatSchools ratings for Amarillo high schools?

Amarillo High School 6/10, Tascosa High School 5/10, Palo Duro High School 4/10, and Caprock High School 3/10. Note that GreatSchools ratings correlate heavily with socioeconomic composition and that other systems rank these campuses differently — US News places Palo Duro ahead of several higher-GreatSchools campuses in the metro.

How many schools are in Amarillo ISD?

Approximately 52 to 55 campuses depending on the reporting source and year, serving roughly 28,300 to 30,300 students. That includes roughly 34 to 37 elementary schools, 11 to 12 middle schools, and six high-school-level campuses.

Is Randall High School in Amarillo or Canyon?

Randall High School is physically located inside Amarillo city limits at 9201 South Bell Street, but it is a Canyon ISD campus. This is the clearest example of why school district assignment in the Amarillo area must be verified by address rather than assumed from the mailing address.

Which Amarillo neighborhoods are in Canyon ISD?

Much of southwest and south Amarillo, including the Greenways corridor, Westover, and newer construction communities such as Beacon Pointe, Hillside Terrace, and Heritage Hills. Canyon ISD operates eight campuses inside south Amarillo. Verify each specific address with the district.

What private schools are in Amarillo, TX?

Ascension Academy, San Jacinto Christian Academy, St. Andrew's Episcopal School, and St. Mary's Cathedral School, which also operates a Montessori preschool and elementary program and enrolls around 238 students.

Does Amarillo ISD have career and technical education?

Yes. AmTech Career Academy is the district's CTE hub, with programs in animal science; architecture, construction and manufacturing; business, marketing and finance; culinary arts; law and public service; media arts; medical arts; STEM and information technology; and transportation. Students can take AmTech courses while remaining enrolled at their home high school.

Why did Amarillo ISD close schools?

Enrollment declined roughly 16% from 2016 levels, and in December 2024 the board voted to close the district's three smallest elementary campuses — Park Hills, Pleasant Valley, and Sunrise — consolidating them with paired campuses beginning August 2025. Small campuses are difficult to operate efficiently under the current state funding model.

Enrollment figures, ratings, and attendance zones change annually and vary between reporting sources. GreatSchools ratings cited here were available for Amarillo ISD comprehensive high schools; campus-level GreatSchools ratings for other districts were not consistently available and are represented using TEA accountability and US News data where noted. Always verify current campus assignment and performance data directly with the school district.