Summary:
Oregon City School District 62 includes two middle schools — Gardiner Middle School and Tumwata Middle School — both serving grades 6–8 with very similar enrollment (699 and 685 students). The Oregon City School District 62 is rated 35th of 141 districts in Oregon, in the 75th percentile with 4 stars, while both middle schools carry 3 stars in 2025–2026.
For parents comparing the two, the differences are real but mixed. Tumwata is the higher-ranked school, at 148th of 371 Oregon middle schools (60th percentile), and it has improved fastest — from the 42nd percentile in 2023–24 to the 60th in 2025–26, an 18-point gain that moved it ahead of Gardiner. Tumwata posts the stronger English Language Arts result (46.8% proficient at all grades, above the district's 45.5% and the state's 43.8%) and the stronger science result (34.3%, above district and state), including an 8th-grade ELA score of 56.3% — the best single subject-grade result in this data. Gardiner, ranked 172nd of 371 (54th percentile), is the standout in attendance (26.5% chronic absenteeism vs. Tumwata's 32.8%, and better than both district and state) and in math (31.9% vs. Tumwata's 28.3%), though Gardiner's math is still slightly below district and state averages.
Both schools face a shared math challenge — neither reaches the district's 33.5% math proficiency — and Tumwata's math weakness is sharpest in grades 6 and 7 (23.3% and 28.1%). Both schools improved from 2 stars in 2023–24 to 3 stars in each of the last two years. The two schools serve nearly identical populations, including free/reduced lunch rates of 54.22% and 54.6%, yet show different academic strengths: Tumwata in ELA and science, Gardiner in math and attendance. If choosing priorities from this data, Gardiner's clearest needs are science and ELA, and Tumwata's is math in the lower middle grades.
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