Ferndale Elementary School

Ferndale Elementary School is a public elementary school located in Milton Freewater, Oregon, serving grades 4-5 with a total enrollment of 233 students. The school is part of the Milton-Freewater Unified School District 7. Based on the data provided, Ferndale Elementary School has consistently ranked in the bottom half of Oregon elementary schools, with a 1-star rating from SchoolDigger for most of the recent school years.

Ferndale Elementary School faces significant challenges, including high chronic absenteeism rates ranging from 33.5% to 38.1% in recent years, which are significantly higher than the state average. The school's academic performance, as measured by the percentage of students proficient or better in OSAS (Oregon Statewide Assessment System) tests, is consistently lower than the state and district averages in English Language Arts, Mathematics, and Science. For example, in the 2024-2025 school year, only 31.2% of 4th-grade students and 31.8% of 5th-grade students were proficient or better in English Language Arts, compared to the state averages of 42.1% and 46.7%, respectively. The school's performance also varies significantly across different student subgroups, with lower rankings for Female students, Hispanic students, and English Language Learner students.

Interestingly, the nearby Athena Elementary School, which is part of the Athena-Weston School District 29RJ, has significantly higher academic performance, with 43.2% of 3rd-grade students proficient or better in English Language Arts and 45.5% in Mathematics in the 2024-2025 school year, compared to the state averages. This suggests that the challenges faced by Ferndale Elementary School may be systemic within the Milton-Freewater Unified School District 7, as another school in the same district, Gib Olinger Elementary School, has similar academic performance and student demographics.