Preston Junior High School

Preston Junior High School serves 540 students in grades 6 through 8 in Preston, a small city in southeastern Idaho, and is part of the Preston Joint District. The school's state ranking has fluctuated over the past decade, and in the 2025–2026 school year it ranked 104th out of 174 Idaho middle schools—the 40th percentile, earning two stars. That's a drop from the prior three years, when the school held steady in the 51st to 62nd percentile range with three-star ratings. The school also serves a growing share of economically disadvantaged students: free/reduced lunch participation rose from 33.5% in 2022–2023 to 45.4% in 2024–2025.

Math is the school's biggest academic concern. Only 32.5% of students scored proficient in math on the ISAT in 2025–2026, well below the state average of 43.1% and the district's 39%. This gap appears at every grade level, and math proficiency has fallen by over seven percentage points in three years. English Language Arts performance is essentially at the state average at 54.6%, while 8th grade science is a relative bright spot at 45.8% proficiency, above the state's 42.9%. However, Beutler Middle School—just 6.8 miles away in Dayton—outperforms Preston in every subject by wide margins, despite serving a similar share of low-income students (47.5% free/reduced lunch vs. Preston's 45.4%). Beutler's math proficiency was 54.1% and its ELA proficiency was 69.6%.

There are some positive trends worth noting. Chronic absenteeism has dropped dramatically, from 22.9% in 2020–2021 to 2.3% in 2024–2025, and even the 7.2% figure for 2025–2026 is well below the state average of 13.8%. But resource disparities may be a factor in the performance gap: Preston has a higher student-teacher ratio (18.8 vs. 15.2 at Beutler) and spent about $2,000 less per student. While Beutler has consistently ranked in the 81st–87th percentile, Preston has slipped from the 62nd to the 40th percentile over the past three years, suggesting that more targeted support may be needed—especially in math.