Mills vs Boone Elementary: 6 Distinctions vs 0 in Austin ISD

Mills Earned 6 Distinctions. Boone Earned Zero. Same District, Three Miles Apart.

Mills Elementary earned all 6 TEA distinctions in 2025 and an A rating with a 94 out of 100. Boone Elementary, sitting three miles south in the same Austin ISD, earned 0 distinctions and a C with a 72. That is not a small gap. That is the difference between a campus operating at the top of its district and a campus that has been trending the wrong direction for several years in a row.

And yet the two schools share more than buyers might think. They sit in the same district. They are both EE through 5th grade. They are both anchors of established Southwest and South Austin neighborhoods where buyers can still find a single family home for under $700K. So the comparison is real. Lets walk through what the data actually says.

Quick note before we dig in. The Texas Education Agency uses three domains for its 2025 ratings, Student Achievement, School Progress, and Closing the Gaps. You might see older content referring to four domains. That is outdated. Three is the current framework, and that is what we will compare on.

Mills vs Boone: Quick Comparison

One thing worth flagging right at the top. The two schools do not actually share a high school. Mills feeds into Bowie. Boone feeds into Crockett. That is a meaningful difference for buyers who are thinking past 5th grade, which most buyers should be.

TEA School Performance Comparison (2025)

The Texas Education Agency evaluates every public school annually across three performance domains. Student Achievement and School Progress are weighted heavily (the better of the two counts for 70 percent of the overall score), and Closing the Gaps accounts for the remaining 30 percent. Here is how both campuses performed in the 2025 accountability cycle.

Mills is in the 90s across every domain, which is rare. The 94 Closing the Gaps score is the one that tells you the most. That domain looks at how every student subgroup is performing, not just the overall average. A campus can post a strong overall score while still having a subgroup that is being left behind. Mills is not doing that. It is performing well across the board, and it earned all 6 TEA distinctions to prove it.

Boone is a different picture. The 72 overall is C territory, the underlying domain scores are clustered tightly in the low 70s, and the campus earned zero of the 6 available distinctions. That is the part that should give buyers pause. Distinctions are awarded when a campus performs at the top of comparable schools in specific academic areas. Earning zero means Boone is not standing out in any subject area relative to its peer group, even at the C level. The rating history at Boone has also been trending down, going from a B in 2023 to a C in 2024 and a lower C in 2025.

For the full TEA breakdown on each campus, visit the Mills Elementary school page or the Boone Elementary school page.

Mills Elementary: A Top Performer in Southwest Austin

Mills is one of the top performing elementary schools in Austin ISD, full stop. The 94 overall score, the 94 in Closing the Gaps, and all 6 distinctions put it in conversation with Casis, Kiker, and the small handful of A rated AISD elementaries that drive premium pricing in their zones. The school has held an A rating in every accountability year going back to 2019, with scores between 94 and 96 the entire time. That kind of consistency is what buyers are actually paying for when they search a school zone.

The neighborhoods around Mills include Village Western Oaks, Legend Oaks, and other established Southwest Austin communities anchored along the Convict Hill and William Cannon corridor between MoPac and 290. Homes here range broadly, anywhere from the mid $300s for a smaller home or condo up past $695K for the larger single family inventory. Lot sizes are generous for the price point, the canopy is mature, and the area has the kind of settled feel that takes decades to develop.

From Mills, students typically continue to Small or Gorzycki Middle School depending on the specific address (a few addresses route to Bedichek or O. Henry, so confirm with AISD), and from there to Bowie High School. Bowie is one of the strongest high schools in the district and a real reason buyers commit to this corner of Austin.

Boone Elementary: A Smaller Campus With a Tougher Story

Boone serves 426 students across South Austin and has a more economically diverse population than Mills, with 34.7 percent of students classified as economically disadvantaged compared to 7.6 percent at Mills. That demographic context matters when reading the scores, and it does not excuse the trend. Boone has slipped from a B in 2023 (83) to a C in 2024 (76) to a lower C in 2025 (72). The campus did not earn any of the 6 available TEA distinctions in 2025. That is the part of the report card that needs honest weight.

Boone feeds into Covington Middle School and then on to Crockett High School. Crockett is a solid AISD campus with a dedicated community, but it is a different long term path than the Bowie pipeline that Mills students follow. For buyers who are doing the full K-12 math before they buy, the Crockett feeder is the part of the Boone decision that deserves the most thought.

The Neighborhoods

The Mills zone is anchored by Village Western Oaks and Legend Oaks, with additional inventory in smaller pockets along the Convict Hill and William Cannon corridor. The vibe is settled Southwest Austin: mature oaks, two-car garages, neighbors who have been there twenty years and the new buyers who just renovated next door. With only 7 active single family listings as of this week, inventory is genuinely tight. The median active list price sits at $595,000.

The Boone zone covers Maple Run, Southampton, Oak Plantations, Kincheon, and a handful of smaller communities a little farther south. Buyers here see substantially more inventory, 27 active single family listings in the same week the Mills zone had 7, and a wider price range that runs from the $160s for the most modest condos and townhomes up to the mid $600s for the larger renovated single family homes. The median sits at $499,900. That is a real entry point into South Austin that has gotten harder to find anywhere else in this part of town.

Browse all homes zoned to Mills Elementary or homes zoned to Boone Elementary.

Which School Fits You?

This one is less of a coin flip than most school comparisons. The TEA data is decisive. But the right call still depends on what you actually need.

You might lean toward Mills if:

• A top tier TEA rating with 6 of 6 distinctions is the deciding factor
• You want the Bowie High School pipeline locked in from the start
• Your budget can absorb the roughly $95K premium over the Boone median
• You value consistency, Mills has been A rated every accountability year since 2019

You might lean toward Boone if:

• You need a sub-$500K entry point into South Austin
• The Crockett feeder works for your long term plans
• You have flexibility to consider AISD’s transfer or magnet options at the middle and high school level

If I am being honest with you, the Mills campus is the stronger school by every published measure, and the Bowie feeder is part of why buyers stretch to be there. But the Boone zone offers something Mills cannot, which is a genuine entry price into established South Austin with single family inventory under $500K. That matters. The right answer is whichever one matches your actual budget and your actual long-term plan, not whichever campus has the better letter grade.

Ready to Find Your Home?

Southwest and South Austin school zones still hold real value if you know where to look, and the right answer here depends entirely on your budget, your long term plan, and which feeder pattern fits your goals. After 19 years selling homes in this part of town, I can help you sort through the trade-offs without the marketing fog. Lets connect.

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