Sahuarita and Freeport-McMoRan Foundation Partnership Impacts Grade-Level Proficiency

Sahuarita Unified School District (SUSD), located just south of Tucson, Arizona, serves 5,800 students enrolled in PK-12 grades. The district has been the recipient of funding via the Freeport-McMoRan Foundation (FCX Foundation), whose goal is to build resiliency in communities where it has a presence.

This evaluation is the first study that seeks to understand the impact of various SUSD initiatives funded by the FCX Foundation, and was led by researcher Dr. Brett Kramer of Decisive Data Insights. The study began with stakeholder engagement. The research team then collected performance data across the funded projects, analyzed the data to determine partnership effects, and tied those effects back to larger measures to inform the direction of future investments.

The investment in Discovery Education led to an increase in math, science, and reading proficiency. And, with 18 positive effects across grade and subjects, it can be concluded that use of Discovery Education led to better academic outcomes in every subject and grade level, to some degree, than what would have been attained without its use.