Hayhurst Elementary School

Hayhurst Elementary School is a K–8 school serving 525 students in the Hillsdale neighborhood of Southwest Portland, part of Portland School District 1J.

Hayhurst has been remarkably consistent: it has earned 5 stars and placed at the 92nd–93rd percentile for five straight reporting years, ranking 57th of 709 Oregon elementary schools in 2025–26. All-grades proficiency is 71.4% in English language arts, 63.3% in math, and 53.5% in science — roughly 23 to 30 points above the state and well above the district. Its strongest results come in the middle grades, where 7th-grade ELA reaches 92.9% and 8th-grade math 82.6%. One thing to keep in mind: Hayhurst is the only K–8 in this group, so its all-grades numbers blend middle-school grades that K–5 neighbors like Rieke Elementary School, Ainsworth Elementary School, and Bridlemile Elementary School don't serve. It spends $18,943 per student — about $3,900 below the average of its Portland peers — with a student/teacher ratio of 15.8 that beats most of them. For context, Montclair Elementary School in Beaverton School District 48J posts comparable proficiency with a much higher share of low-income students.

A few cautions are worth knowing. Chronic absenteeism is 23.2% — better than the district (32.5%) and state (33.5%) and improving, but the highest among its Portland neighbors, which run 14–16%. Results for students from low-income families stand at the 19th percentile (1 star), down from the 53rd percentile two years earlier, and gifted-student results fell from the 80th percentile to the 37th. These subgroups are small, so year-to-year ranks are volatile, but the gap between the school's overall performance and its lowest-income students is worth watching. The standout is special education: 97th percentile, 9th of 355 schools, sustained over three years. Elementary math and science are solid but unremarkable — 5th-grade math is 51.3%, close to the district average and well behind Rieke, Ainsworth, and Bridlemile.