Best Public Schools in Zip Code 97352

ZIP code 97352 is served by three public schools — Jefferson Elementary School (grades K–5, 272 students), Jefferson Middle School (grades 6–8, 178 students), and Jefferson High School (grades 9–12, 245 students). All three belong to Jefferson School District 14J, which enrolls 695 students total and ranks 137th of 141 Oregon districts — the 3rd percentile, with 0 stars. Poverty is uniformly high: free or reduced-price lunch ranges narrowly from 75.28% to 75.92% across the three schools, so differences in outcomes are not explained by differences in poverty within this ZIP.

Every school here scores below Oregon averages in all-grade English language arts, math, and science. Jefferson Elementary School is the relatively strongest, with ELA at 30.6%, math at 14.3%, and science at 17.8% — all above the district but below the state's 43.8%, 32.9%, and 30.6%. Jefferson Middle School sits slightly below the district in ELA (26.2%) and math (12.3%) and well below it in science (8.3%), and it has the highest student-teacher ratio in the ZIP at 41.2; 6th-grade math proficiency is under 5%, against a state rate of 29.7%. Jefferson High School is the sharpest contrast: its graduation rate of 84.5% is slightly above the state's 83.0%, and it has the highest per-student spending ($21,337) and lowest student-teacher ratio (31.8), yet its ELA is 17.3% and math 7.7%.

Attendance is a concern at every level. Elementary and middle chronic absenteeism are both 40.1%, above the state's 33.5%, while the high school reaches 51.3% — more than half of its students. Ranking trends also diverge: Jefferson High fell from the 66th percentile with 3 stars in 2023–2024 to the 7th percentile with 0 stars in 2025–2026, while Jefferson Elementary improved from the 5th to the 15th percentile, still in the bottom 15% of ranked Oregon elementary schools with 1 star. Jefferson Middle has held steady at roughly the 11th–14th percentile with 1 star. Grade-level results are uneven rather than uniformly weak — 3rd-grade ELA at the elementary school matches the state exactly at 41.5%, but 4th-grade ELA drops to 16.3% against a state rate of 43.5%. Overall, this is a small, high-poverty district with low proficiency throughout, a serious high school decline, and attendance problems that span all grade levels.