Summary:
Wathena’s listed schools are the Riverside Middle School, serving grades 6–8, and Riverside High School, serving grades 9–12; together they enroll 324 students, 143 in middle school and 181 in high school. The latest results show a clear contrast in proficiency, and the most pressing concern is that the high school is below the state in all three reported subjects—by 14 points in ELA, 16 in math and 19 in science.
Riverside Middle School stands out for higher all-grades proficiency than the high school in every subject: 42% versus 32% in ELA, 33% versus 25% in math, and 35% versus 19% in science. Those differences are 10, 8 and 16 percentage points, respectively. In grade-specific results, middle-school grade 7 ELA and grade 6 math were each about 2 points above the state, while grade 8 math was 12 points below. Riverside High School has a notable strength in graduation: 98% in 2023–24, about 8 points above the state. Attendance is a concern there, however: chronic absenteeism was 20% at the high school, compared with 15% at the middle school and 18% statewide. Because the schools serve different grades, their all-grades score differences are descriptive, not like-for-like comparisons.
High-school test results shifted sharply: ELA proficiency fell from 56% in 2024–25 to 32% in 2025–26, a 24-point drop, while math fell from 32% to 25%. SchoolDigger’s high-school percentile ranking also swung from 35th to 73rd to 22nd across the three latest years shown; the middle school’s was steadier at 41st, 45th and 41st. The latest SchoolDigger rankings are 266 of 340 for the high school and 216 of 368 for the middle school. The high school has a lower student-teacher ratio (10.3 versus 12.9) and free/reduced-lunch rate (48% versus 58%), yet lower all-grades scores and higher absenteeism; these are context, not explanations for results.
Thank you for your feedback!