Knappa School District 4

Knappa School District 4 is a small rural Oregon district with just two schools serving 424 students total: Hilda Lahti Elementary School, which covers grades K–8 with 293 students, and Knappa High School, which serves grades 9–12 with 131 students. Because the K–8 school absorbs the middle grades, there is no separate middle school and no alternative school in the district. The district ranks 128 of 141 in Oregon — the 9th percentile — with 0 stars, and both schools carry 1 star in the latest rank history.

Hilda Lahti Elementary School is the brighter story of the two. Its state rank percentile has climbed from 11 to 17 to 28 over three years, and its chronic absenteeism (29.2%) is better than both the district (35.3%) and state (33.5%). Its early grades are close to state averages — 3rd and 4th grade ELA are roughly even, and 8th grade math (33.3%) beats the state's 30%. However, the middle grades fall off sharply: 6th grade ELA and 5th grade math are both under 5% versus state rates in the low 40s and low 30s, 7th grade math is 6.1% vs 33.3% state, and science across all grades is 12.3% vs 30.6% state. Roughly 67.58% of its students qualify for free/reduced lunch.

Knappa High School faces steeper challenges. Its ranking swings wildly — 22nd percentile in 2022–2023, 62nd with 3 stars in 2024–2025, then 14th with 1 star in 2025–2026 — a pattern typical of very small cohorts. Nearly half its students (49.6%) are chronically absent, and its graduation rate is 70.3% vs 83.0% statewide. Math across all grades and in 11th grade is under 5%, ELA is 33.3%, and science is 13.6%. Notably, it spends more per student ($25,146) and has a lower student-teacher ratio (11.9) than Hilda Lahti, yet outcomes trail further behind state. District-wide science (12.7%) is less than half the state rate.