Summary
Fossil Charter School is an alternative public charter school serving grades K–12 in the small rural town of Fossil, Oregon, part of Fossil School District 21J, with 2,494 students reported and no other schools located within 20 miles. Because there are no nearby schools to compare against, the most useful benchmarks here are Oregon state averages.
Academically, the picture is strong. In 2025–2026, all-grade proficiency was 64.7% in English Language Arts, 53.4% in math, and 52.9% in science, compared with state averages of 43.8%, 32.9%, and 30.6% — gaps of roughly 20 to 22 percentage points. Every reported grade-level and subject result beat the state, including 7th grade ELA at 76.7% versus 45.3% and 7th grade math at 62.2% versus 33.3%. The smallest gaps were still positive (5th grade math at 44.3% versus 32.4%, and 8th grade math at 41.7% versus 30.0%). Note that 11th grade ELA, math, and science results are suppressed by the state, so those are unknown rather than low. Graduation rates were at or above the state in most reported years, including 100% in 2024–2025; the only slightly lower year was 2021–2022 at 80.0% versus the state's 81.3%. Chronic absenteeism, where the school reported it, was far below the state: 7.5% versus 36.1% in 2021–2022 and 6.4% versus 28.1% in 2020–2021.
Some context is worth knowing. The student–teacher ratio is very high at about 43:1, which would suggest roughly 57–58 teachers across all grades, and free/reduced lunch rates were extremely low (1.56% in 2023–2024). Per-student spending has held steady around $10,300–$10,800, but no state or peer figures were provided to judge it. Recent chronic absenteeism (2022–2023 through 2024–2025) and 2024–2025 free/reduced lunch data are missing, so the latest picture of student need and engagement is incomplete. Also, district figures match school figures in every reported metric, so comparing to the district is effectively comparing the school to itself.
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