The district was established on September 16, 1886. It originally used a
one room schoolhouse, with its first multi-room facility, the Murphy No. 1 School, built in 1912. Initially, under Arizona law, a school district with a single school could only appoint a principal, and not a superintendent. In the 1920s Clyde J. Hinton served as principal, followed by Charles Bill. William R. Sullivan became the principal in 1940. The district gained a superintendent, Sullivan, after it opened another school in 1949. Subsequent superintendents included Dr. David M. Salopek since 1976, Dr. Alejandro Perez since 1979, and Dr. Robert I. Donofrio since 1986. Donofrio retired in 2004; he stated that the district was "well-regarded" at that time. In 2012 Emily Gersema of
The Arizona Republic stated that the district's recent history was characterized by "lagging test scores, high teacher turnover and poor leadership" amid struggles between the school board and area parents. The student population at the time was 2,200. Ricardo Cano of
The Arizona Republic wrote that by 2018 there was instability in the district's faculty and that superintendents tended to have short tenures; he also stated that "a large swath of parents became disillusioned with district leadership". Class sizes at the elementary level increased to as high as 47 as the district ended contracts with third party entities that supplied teachers. In March of that year, Jose Diaz, the superintendent; and Richard Polanco, the president of the school board, resigned. The state asked Simon Consulting to write a report on how to solve the financial problems in the district, and in October 2018 it released the report discussing maintenance problems; mold was an issue at all four campuses. In addition the district had spent $173,000 for the curriculum it used, while it spent $500,000 for a curriculum it never used. Donofrio described the district as having severe management problems. ==Demographics==