Summary:
Merrill, Oregon is a small rural community in Klamath County with just one high school, Lost River High School, which serves 242 students in grades 7–12 and is part of the Klamath County School District. Because it is the only high school in the city, there are no local peers to compare it against, so the most useful comparisons are with its own district and with Oregon overall.
Lost River's clearest strengths are graduation and attendance. Its graduation rate is 97.4%, well above the district's 86.7% and the state's 83.0%, and its chronic absenteeism rate is 19.2%, notably lower than the district's 31.0% and the state's 33.5% — and lower is better here. In English language arts, the school also outperforms: all-grade ELA proficiency is 50.9% versus 41.1% in the district and 43.8% statewide, and 11th-grade ELA stands out at 85.7%, compared with 59.9% in the district and 46.0% in the state. These results are especially notable given that about 91.74% of students qualify for free or reduced lunch, and the school spends roughly $22,704 per student with a 16.1 student-to-teacher ratio.
Results are less consistent in other areas. All-grade mathematics proficiency is 26.9% and all-grade science is 23.5%, both below district and state averages. Performance also varies by grade: 8th-grade math is 30.8%, above both district and state, while 8th-grade ELA is 26.8%, about 14.7 points below state, and 11th-grade science is 33.3%, close to state but below district. The school ranked 87th of 271 Oregon schools (68th percentile, 3 stars) in 2025–2026, down from 45th of 270 (83rd percentile, 4 stars) the year before — still in the top third statewide.
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