Summary:
There is one middle school in zip code 83661, McCain Middle School, which serves grades 5 through 8 and enrolls 375 students in the Payette area.
McCain Middle School is the only middle school in this zip code, so all attention focuses on this single campus. The school has consistently ranked in the 7th percentile of Idaho middle schools across multiple school years, placing it in the bottom tier of statewide performance. Academic proficiency on the Idaho Standards Achievement Test is well below state averages in every subject. For the 2025–2026 school year, math proficiency was 21.7% compared to the state's 43.1%, science was 23.0% versus 42.7%, and English Language Arts was 30.8% versus 54.0%. The largest gap is in ELA, where the school trails the state by more than 23 percentage points. On a positive note, the school has shown improvement from the prior year in all subjects, with ELA rising 6.8 points. The school also scores slightly above its own district, Payette Joint District, in math and ELA, indicating these challenges are districtwide rather than isolated to this campus.
The school faces significant non-academic hurdles. About 65% of students are eligible for free or reduced-price lunch, and the chronic absenteeism rate of 21.4% is noticeably higher than the state average of 13.8%. Fifth grade English Language Arts proficiency is a particular concern at just 20.8%, well below the school's overall ELA rate of 30.8%, suggesting younger students may need extra literacy support. The student-teacher ratio is 16.3, and per-student spending was $7,372 in 2018–2019. For parents, the key takeaway is that McCain Middle School is working through persistent academic challenges tied to poverty and absenteeism, though recent gains in test scores, especially in reading, offer a glimmer of hope for continued improvement.
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