Powers School District 31

Powers School District 31 is a very small two-school district in Oregon, serving about 114 students across grades K–12: Powers Elementary School covers grades K–6 with 62 students, and Powers High School covers grades 7–12 with 52 students. There is no middle school or alternative school in the district. Both schools share the same district rating — rank 122 of 141, 13th percentile, 1 star — and many grade-level test scores are suppressed by the state for privacy, so they are unknown rather than zero.

Comparing the two schools, the elementary school is the stronger academic performer. Its all-grade English language arts proficiency is 41.7%, close to the state's 43.8%, while the high school's is 20%. In math the gap is wider: 30.6% at the elementary school versus 5.7% at the high school, and just under 5% in 11th grade, compared with 32.9% statewide. Science is weaker at both — 21.4% elementary and 19.2% high school, against 30.6% statewide — but 8th grade science is a bright spot at 41.7% versus the state's 27.7%. The high school's graduation rate of 87.5% is also above the state's 83.0%.

Two challenges affect both schools. Chronic absenteeism is above the state's 33.5% everywhere: 37.1% at the elementary school, 39.6% at the high school, and 38.2% district-wide. The high school also reports 86.54% free/reduced lunch, a strong indicator of economic need, while the elementary figure of 117.74% exceeds 100% and appears to be a reporting anomaly. The district spends heavily per student — $26,984 elementary and $36,057 high school — with very small classes (student-teacher ratios of 10.4 and 6.6). Because the schools are so small, a single student can shift percentages by several points, so small differences should be read with caution.