Best High Schools in Zip Code 83873

Zip code 83873 in rural northern Idaho is served by a single high school: Wallace Junior/Senior High School, a combined 7-12 campus located in Wallace with just 195 students enrolled. It operates under the Wallace District, which currently holds a 4-star rating and ranks 29th of 101 Idaho districts. With an average grade size of about 28 students, this is an exceptionally small learning environment where individual cohorts can noticeably swing year-to-year results.

Academically, the school's clearest strength is English Language Arts, beating the state average in both reported years (62.0% vs. 53.9% in 2024-2025, and 58.8% vs. 54.0% in 2025-2026). Science is also improving, rising from 41.1% to 45.1% proficiency, with End-of-Course science scoring a strong 50.0% against the state's 41.2%. Middle-grades math is solid, with 7th and 8th graders outperforming state averages. However, high school End-of-Course math lags at just 33.3% proficiency, and 8th-grade literacy and science fall below state benchmarks. The graduation rate is exactly average at 82.5%, essentially identical to the district and state, while chronic absenteeism sits at 14.1%, slightly above the state's 13.8%. The school's star rating has been volatile: 4 stars in 2023-2024, 2 stars in 2024-2025, and a rebound to 3 stars in 2025-2026.

With a favorable 10:1 student-teacher ratio, Wallace offers potential for individual attention, though small classes alone don't guarantee outcomes. About 44.1% of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, yet the school still holds its own academically in ELA and science despite this economic need. The 2025-2026 improvement to the 55th percentile is encouraging, but parents should view this cautiously given the small sample size. The school shows real strengths in literacy and improving science achievement, with targeted support needed in secondary-level math and 8th-grade science and reading. Monitoring performance over multiple years will be essential to determine whether this upward trend is stable or merely the effect of a particularly strong cohort.