STEPHENS EL

STEPHENS EL is an elementary-level community of small scale in SHADY SHORES, Texas, part of DENTON ISD, educateing 422 students in grades pre-K through 5.

STEPHENS EL is one of 46 schools operated by DENTON ISD, a district that works with 33,329 students overall.

On the student-mix side, STEPHENS EL logs that the most-represented group is Black (42%), with the rest of the student body spread across multiple groups. Other groups include 26% White, 19% Hispanic, 8% multiracial, 4% Asian. By comparison, Denton County as a whole is about 11% Black, so the school skews visibly more Black than its surroundings.

Looking at school resources, Staff filings list 37 full-time-equivalent teachers, which works out to roughly 11.3:1 students per teacher. Statewide, the average ratio sits near 15.1:1, putting STEPHENS EL tighter than the state norm the norm. Roughly 63% of students at STEPHENS EL qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, which schools and policymakers use as a rough income-mix signal. That share is noticeably above Denton County's rate of about 35%.

With demographic context factored in, STEPHENS EL is in the bottom 10% of Texas public schools. The BeatsExpectations model predicts schools with this FRL share to land around 46.3%; STEPHENS EL posts 31.9%, -14.3 points below that line.

Across the wider county, community-level numbers for Denton County indicate median household income runs about $111,498, roughly 49% of adults have completed at least a four-year degree, and roughly 4% of residents live below the federal poverty line. Across Denton County's 267 public schools (combined enrollment of about 175,222 students), STEPHENS EL is one campus in the mix.

BETTYE MYERS MIDDLE is the nearest neighboring public school, about 0.1 miles from this campus. Counting just inside five miles, 8 other public schools cluster around STEPHENS EL. On composite proficiency, STEPHENS EL comes 9th of 9 in the immediate cluster, beneath the nearby-schools average of 48.3%.

The campus sits in an outer-ring setting.

Trend over the last 7 years. Over the past 7-year window, the student count contracted 6%: 447 students in 2018 compared to 422 in 2025. The White share of enrollment edged down from 46% to 26% over that span.

Within the allk12 community for this school, the page collects discussion, questions, and updates around school events, parent volunteer needs, and clubs. Parents, students, alumni, and staff are welcome to weigh in.