Summary
Taft Elementary School is an upper-elementary school in Lincoln City, Oregon, serving grades 3–6 with 464 students as part of Lincoln County School District. In 2025–26 it ranked 631st of 709 Oregon elementary schools — 11th percentile, 1 star. This is not a one-year dip: its statewide percentile fell from 25th in 2021–22 to 22nd, then 17th, then 15th, and finally 11th in 2025–26, and it has been a 1-star school in every year shown back to 2014–15.
The school serves a high-need population. In 2024–25, 90.95% of students qualified for free or reduced lunch, up from 66.59% the year before. Chronic absenteeism was 39.3%, above the state's 33.5%, though improved from 43.6% in 2023–24 and 62.3% in 2020–21. Per-student spending was $20,657, and the student-teacher ratio was 19.7, up from 16.3 in 2022–23. On the 2025–26 OSAS, proficiency was 26.4% in English language arts, 17.5% in math, and 14.2% in science — 17.4, 15.4, and 16.4 points below state averages, and below the district in all three. Results vary by grade: 4th grade ELA is 32.1%, slightly above the district's 31.9%, but 6th grade ELA is 15.6%, and math falls from 27% in 3rd grade to 9.7% in 6th.
Nearby options look similar on paper. Nestucca K8, 18.31 miles away in Nestucca Valley School District 101J, serves PK–8 with 336 students and ranks 654th (8th percentile, 0 stars). Taft's proficiency is higher in all three subjects than Nestucca's (26.4% vs. 23.1% in ELA, 17.5% vs. 13.4% in math, 14.2% vs. 10.7% in science), but Taft has higher absenteeism (39.3% vs. 34.1%), lower per-student spending ($20,657 vs. $22,926), and a higher student-teacher ratio (19.7 vs. 17.6). Oceanlake Elementary School is just 3.22 miles away in the same district but serves grades K–2 with 246 students and has no current OSAS data; its only available rank (622nd, 12th percentile) is from 2014–15 and not comparable. Oceanlake's absenteeism is higher (45.4%), while its spending is higher ($23,365) and its ratio lower (15.5).
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