Summary:
Fern Ridge School District 28J contains two high schools serving grades 9–12 — Elmira High School and West Lane Charter School — within a district rated 4 stars and ranked 38th of 141 Oregon districts, or the 73rd percentile. The two schools are very different in size, with Elmira enrolling 374 students and West Lane enrolling 84, and their measured outcomes diverge sharply on nearly every indicator.
Elmira High School is the standout on measured results. Its graduation rate of 88.8% is above both the district (70.3%) and state (83.0%), and its all-grade ELA proficiency of 67.1% and science proficiency of 48.8% are far above district and state figures. Math is the relative weak spot: all-grade math is 30.0%, slightly below the district (31.6%) and state (32.9%), though 11th-grade math (30.0%) is above both. Chronic absenteeism is 33.5%, equal to the state rate. Its recent ranking history is volatile but generally strong, moving from 91st percentile and 5 stars in 2023–2024 to 51st percentile and 3 stars in 2024–2025, then to 49th of 271 schools at 82nd percentile and 4 stars in 2025–2026.
West Lane Charter School shows substantial challenges on the figures that are reported. Its graduation rate is 31.9%, far below the district and state, and its chronic absenteeism rate of 81.8% is more than double both. It spends $9,299 per student compared with $20,131 at Elmira, with a higher student–teacher ratio (21.0 vs. 18.5). All of West Lane's OSAS test scores are suppressed by the state to protect student privacy, so they should be treated as unknown rather than as evidence of weakness; with only 84 students across grades 9–12, small cohort sizes likely explain the suppression. District averages, in short, blend two very different school situations.
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