Spring Creek Middle School

Spring Creek Middle School is a grades 6–8 school with 708 students, located at 14650 Lamoille Highway in Spring Creek, Nevada, a community roughly 7–10 miles from Elko. It is the largest of the three middle-level schools in the Elko district, and its state ranking has slid for three straight years. In 2025–2026 it placed 119th of 148 Nevada middle schools — 20th percentile, 1 star — its lowest position in the ten-year record, down from the 58th percentile and 3 stars in 2017–2018. Its 1-star rating is below its district's 3-star average.

Proficiency trails both the district and the state in math and reading: 19.0% in math and 22.5% in reading, compared with 27.6% and 33.2% districtwide. The same pattern shows up against nearby schools. Adobe Middle School posts 21.7% in math and 32.9% in reading; Flagview Intermediate School posts 29.8% and 39.0%. Spring Creek's 6th graders score 19.5% in math and 21.6% in reading versus Flagview's 33.4% and 40.9%. Notably, Spring Creek has the lowest poverty rate of the three (23.16% free/reduced lunch versus 38.17% and 34.72%) and the highest per-student spending ($12,576 versus $11,746 and $11,068), which points to school-level factors rather than funding or intake.

Chronic absenteeism, at 33.7%, is the highest of the three and above both district and state, though it has improved from 37.0%. Science is the one bright spot: at 21.5% the school beats its district (16.9%) and sits only 4 points behind the state, even though science proficiency has dropped about 15 points in two years — a program worth protecting. Finally, the only subgroup rankings available date to 2017–2018, so it isn't possible to tell which groups have been most affected by the recent decline. Obtaining current subgroup data should be a priority.