About Desert Shadows

Welcome to Desert Shadows Elementary School, an "A+ School of Excellence™," as awarded by the Arizona Educational Foundation. At Desert Shadows, our vision is for students to obtain higher-level, innovative, and career ready skills through an integrated curricular approach. This is accomplished within a positive and safe school community.

Desert Shadows is a Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Mathematics (STEAM) focused school. In partnership with the school community and our wonderful Desert Shadows PTA, we provide students higher level and collaborative instruction through a variety of project-based lessons and organize a wide range of assemblies, family nights, after-school programming, and field trips that support our STEAM initiative. In addition, Desert Shadows is the only school in Arizona that offers a signature program in Suzuki Violin. In our commitment to serve the whole child we are an Arizona "Gold" Award winner for our Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports (PBIS) framework, JAWS (Just Be Nice, Act Responsibly, Wise Choices, Safety First), and provide students support with our Social Emotional Learning program, Harmony SEL. The opportunities for students' success are endless!

We are looking forward to another JAWSome year here at Desert Shadows Elementary School!

Open Enrollment

Continue your child's journey of excellence by open enrolling. Open Enrollment is a process allowing parents or guardians to apply for admission to any public school, as long as there is classroom space available. Parents and guardians often choose to open enroll their children in PVSchools for various reasons, including the unique and innovative award-winning programs, teaching philosophy, extracurricular activities, and more.

For more information on the open enrollment process, to include early bird open enrollment information, visit the PVSchools Open Enrollment webpage.

*The second chart above reflects the capacity for the upcoming school year. For the following school year, all grade levels are accepting open enrollment applications unless otherwise stated.  
**A specialized program that is designated closed for the current school year will remain closed for the following school year unless otherwise stated. Students interested in being put on the waitlist should complete an Open Enrollment application.