Summary:
ZIP code 97523 in Cave Junction, Oregon, has only one public middle school option: Lorna Byrne Middle School, which serves grades 5–8 with 349 students and belongs to the Three Rivers/Josephine County School District. Because there is no other middle school in the ZIP code, families here have no local public alternative to compare it with, so the school's results are best read alongside district and state averages. It serves a high-poverty population: 90.54% of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, per-student spending is $19,472, and the student-teacher ratio is 29, which implies roughly 12 teachers for 349 students.
The clearest strengths are in 8th grade and in the school's overall trajectory. In 2025–26, 8th graders scored 56.6% in English language arts — 13.5 points above the district and 15.1 points above the state — and 39.7% in science, which is 6.5 points above the district and 12.0 points above the state. All-grade ELA (44.9%) and science (34.0%) both topped the district and state averages. The school also moved up in the rankings, from 199th of 371 (46th percentile, 2 stars) in 2023–24 to 147th of 371 (60th percentile, 3 stars) in 2025–26, which is above the district's 52nd percentile.
Mathematics is the main weakness. All-grade math proficiency was 26.6%, below both the district's 29.0% and the state's 32.9%; 5th grade was 8.8 points below the state and 6th grade 6.9 points below, and only 8th grade edged past the state average, at 30.7% versus 30.0%. ELA is uneven as well: 5th grade fell below district and state, while the 8th-grade result carried the all-grade figure. Chronic absenteeism was 34.4% — better than the district's 37.6% but slightly above the state's 33.5%. Overall, this is an improving school with genuine 8th-grade and science strengths, and math in grades 5 and 6 as the priority area.
Thank you for your feedback!