Umatilla High School

Umatilla High School is a 9–12 comprehensive high school serving about 466 students at 1400 7th St in Umatilla, Oregon, a small Columbia Basin community on the Umatilla River near the Washington border, and it is the only high school in Umatilla School District 6R.

On the state's 2025–2026 tests, 11th graders at Umatilla were 18.1% proficient in English language arts, 6.2% in math, and 19.5% in science — the lowest of any nearby school. For comparison, the Oregon state averages are 46.0% in ELA, 22.9% in math, and 33.8% in science, and neighbors like Hermiston High School (45.6% ELA) and Irrigon Junior/Senior High School (57.4% ELA) score much higher. Umatilla's 6.2% math figure means roughly 1 in 16 eleventh graders met the standard. Chronic absenteeism was 41.3%, above both the district (33.0%) and the state (33.5%), and the school has exceeded both for five straight years. Class sizes are the largest in the area (20.0 students per teacher, versus 15.0 at Stanfield Secondary School), even though per-student spending is near the top of the group at $20,441 and rising.

There are genuine bright spots. The graduation rate was 87.0% in 2024–2025, above Oregon's 83.0%, and it has beaten the state in four of the last five years — a puzzling contrast with the low test scores. The school also ranks 251st of 271 Oregon high schools (7th percentile, zero stars), its lowest showing on record; the district ranks 140th of 141 statewide, so the high school actually outperforms the elementary and middle grades feeding it. Stanfield Secondary School, a similarly small, high-poverty rural school about 10 miles away, keeps chronic absenteeism at 20.6% and graduates 94.6%, showing the region's challenges don't make Umatilla's attendance and proficiency results inevitable.