Fern Ridge School District 28J

Fern Ridge School District 28J serves roughly 1,374 students in five schools around Veneta and Elmira in western Lane County, Oregon: two K–5 elementaries, one 6–8 middle school, and two 9–12 high schools, one of them a small charter. The district ranks 38th of 141 Oregon districts (73rd percentile, 4 stars), but that strong profile rests mostly on its high-school anchor rather than uniform school-level results. Test scores and ranks reflect 2025–2026; graduation, absenteeism, spending, and staffing figures are 2024–2025; and West Lane Charter School's test scores are suppressed by the state, so its proficiency is unknown, not zero.

Elmira High School is the standout: 49th of 271 schools (82nd percentile, 4 stars), an 88.8% graduation rate against the state's 83.0%, and above-state ELA (67.1% vs 43.8%) and science (48.8% vs 30.6%), though its math runs slightly below state. Veneta Elementary School is the math bright spot at 39.9% proficient, above both district and state, with the district's second-lowest absenteeism (26.8%). Fern Ridge Middle School has climbed three straight years (46th to 55th percentile) and beats the state in 7th- and 8th-grade ELA, but 8th-grade math (21.0%) lags. Elmira Elementary School has the lowest absenteeism (23.1%) and smallest classes (16.3 students per teacher) with mostly average scores. West Lane Charter School, at 84 students, is the biggest outlier: 81.8% chronic absenteeism, a 31.9% graduation rate, the highest poverty rate, the lowest spending ($9,299), and the highest student-teacher ratio (21.0).

Elementary science is the clearest shared weakness — Veneta (19.4%) and Elmira Elementary (23.9%) both trail the district's 32.8% and the state's 30.6% — while math is uneven, strong in Veneta's grades 3–4 and weaker in middle school and at the high school. Despite free/reduced lunch rates near 70–76% at every school, Elmira High and Veneta Elementary still post above-state results in key subjects. The district's 73rd-percentile rank masks schools ranging from the 43rd to the 82nd percentile, plus one whose current academic performance cannot be evaluated from public data.