Middle Schools in Nickerson

Nickerson has one middle school, Reno Valley Middle School, serving grades 7–8 and enrolling 137 students. In 2025–2026, the school’s average across ELA, math and science was 43%, compared with 42% for the state. Its clearest strength was science: 50% of students were proficient, 12 percentage points above the state’s 38%.

Among the school’s all-grade results, science was strongest relative to the state, while ELA was weakest: proficiency was 40% in ELA, 6 points below the state’s 46%, and 40% in math, 1 point below the state’s 41%. Results also differed sharply by grade. Grade 7 ELA and math were below state results—33% versus 44% in ELA and 29% versus 38% in math—while grade 8 was above in both: 48% versus 42% in ELA and 52% versus 40% in math. The grade-to-grade gap in the school’s advantage relative to the state was 16 points for ELA and 21 points for math. Because the list has only one school, it does not support a local school-to-school ranking.

Results improved overall compared with 2024–2025, but the gains were not consistent across subjects. Reno Valley’s science proficiency rose from 33% to 50%, while the state’s fell from 41% to 38%; the school’s science gap shifted from 8 points below the state to 12 points above. ELA rose from 37% to 40%, while math slipped from 41% to 40%. The school’s three-subject average moved from 4 points below the state to 2 points above. SchoolDigger’s ranking also improved, from 196th of 362 schools and the 46th percentile with 2 stars in 2023–2024 to 144th of 368 and the 61st percentile with 3 stars in 2025–2026. For context, the student–teacher ratio was 7.9 and the free/reduced-lunch rate was 53% in 2024–2025; neither figure by itself explains the achievement results.