Sweet Home High School

Sweet Home High School is a comprehensive public high school serving grades 9–12 with 752 students in Sweet Home, Oregon, the largest school in Sweet Home School District 55 and the second-largest of the four high schools compared here. Its statewide standing has slid over the past decade: from the 65th percentile and 3 stars in 2016–17 to the 22nd percentile and 1 star in 2025–26, with most of the last five years spent in the bottom quartile. A promising rebound to the 41st percentile in 2024–25 did not hold — the following year erased most of that gain.

Two numbers tell the school's central story. Sweet Home graduates students above the state rate (87.9% in 2024–25 versus Oregon's 83.0%, beating the state in four of the last five years), yet roughly half its students are chronically absent — 47.3% that year, against a state rate of 33.5% and above its own district every year on record. Test proficiency runs about 16 points below the state in English language arts (27.1%) and math (16.7%). Science is the exception: at 23.2% proficient, it is the only subject where the school exceeds its own district (20.8%), and its gap to the state there is less than half its ELA and math gaps.

Compared with nearby schools, Sweet Home lands at roughly the same overall percentile as Lebanon High School (22 vs. 25) — despite having the lowest poverty rate (74.7% free/reduced lunch) and the lowest per-student spending ($19,279) of the group. Its 11th-grade math proficiency leads Central Linn High School, Mohawk High School, and Lebanon, while its ELA trails them. Mohawk posts far lower chronic absenteeism (24.2%) with much higher spending, and Central Linn shows what strong science instruction can produce (39.3%). Sweet Home's high school also lags its own district's earlier grades, pointing to instruction, attendance, and the 9th-to-12th-grade transition as the areas where change would have to come from.