Best Public Schools in Zip Code 97396

ZIP code 97396 covers the Willamina area of Oregon, where three public schools serve students from kindergarten through 12th grade, all within Willamina School District 30J: Willamina Elementary School (grades K–5, 357 students), Willamina Middle School (grades 6–8, 186 students), and Willamina High School (grades 9–12, 274 students), totaling 817 students on a shared campus at 1100 Oaken Hills Dr. Parents should know the district itself ranks 134 of 141 in Oregon, in the 5th percentile with 0 stars, so school results are being measured against a district already near the bottom of the state.

Compared with each other, Willamina Middle School is the relative academic bright spot: its all-grade English Language Arts proficiency is 35.3%, above the district's 29.8%, and its 7th-grade results (41.5% in ELA and 29.3% in math) come closest to state averages in this data set. It also improved from the 12th to the 23rd percentile in rank and spends the most per student ($24,422), though its science proficiency is just 7.5% and chronic absenteeism is 51.8%. Willamina Elementary School has the largest enrollment and the best attendance (34.4% chronically absent, close to the state's 33.5%), but its proficiency sits below state levels, with 5th-grade math dropping to 8.3%. Willamina High School has the highest absenteeism (60.3%), the weakest 11th-grade proficiency (26.5% ELA, 8.2% math, 5.6% science), the lowest per-student spending ($21,889), and the largest classes (ratio 25.5), yet its 83.1% graduation rate matches the state's 83.0%.

A few patterns stand out for families. Science is weak in every school (15%, 7.5%, and 5.6% versus a state average of 30.6%), chronic absenteeism climbs sharply from elementary to high school, and math proficiency is low at several transition points, not just at the end of high school. Free/reduced-lunch figures are reported as 103.36% at the elementary school and 167.88% at the high school, with the middle school not reported, so those numbers cannot be used reliably to compare poverty across these schools.