Serena CUSD 2

Serena CUSD 2 has four schools serving elementary, middle and high school grades. Results differ substantially across schools and grades: Serena Middle School and Harding Grade School show strengths in some areas, while Sheridan Elementary School has low all-grades results and Serena High School has a sharp ninth-grade slide. The clearest concern for families is Serena High’s ninth-grade performance: ELA was 35% versus 62% statewide, and the school’s graduation rate was 71% versus 90% statewide.

The elementary and middle schools have distinct academic strengths, with Sheridan at the bottom of the all-grades results. In 2025–26, Serena Middle led all-grades ELA at 59%, compared with Sheridan’s 35%; Harding led all-grades math at 67%, while Sheridan scored 20%. Harding’s math was 28 points above the state, while Sheridan’s was 20 points below; in ELA, Serena Middle was 3 points above the state and Sheridan 21 points below. Same-grade results add nuance: Sheridan’s fourth-grade ELA was 58%, above Harding’s 50% and the state’s 56%, while Harding’s fourth-grade math was 75%, 33 points above the state. These all-grades comparisons are descriptive because the schools serve different grade spans.

Recent trends are mixed: Harding’s all-grades math rose 9 points from 2024–25 to 2025–26, while Sheridan’s fell 15 points and Serena Middle’s fell 4; Serena Middle’s ELA rose 8 points. At Serena High, tenth- and eleventh-grade scores improved across subjects, but ninth-grade scores fell, including a 23-point ELA drop. Attendance is a positive across the district: chronic absenteeism ranged from 9% to 16%, below the state’s 24%. Student-teacher ratios ranged from 10.3 at Sheridan to 14.4 at Harding. In 2024–25, free/reduced lunch eligible shares ranged from 34% at Serena High to 45% at Serena Middle. SchoolDigger percentile rankings also differed: Harding was at the 63rd percentile in 2025–26, Serena Middle at the 51st, and Serena High at the 35th; these rankings are not test-score percentages.