Summary:
Dayton School District is a small Washington district serving 379 students across four schools, with programs ranging from prekindergarten through grade 12, plus a separate alternative program for grades 6–12. The district includes Dayton Elementary School, Dayton Middle School, Dayton High School, and Dayton School District Alternative Program. Overall, the district ranks in the 25th percentile statewide, but the individual schools have very different performance profiles.
Dayton High School is the district’s strongest academic option based on the available data. It ranked in the 71st percentile for 2024–2025 and had a 4-star rating, with 76.47% of students proficient in English language arts, 51.52% in math, and 60% in science. Its 75% graduation rate was better than the district rate of 64%, though below the state rate of 82.6%. The high school also reported the district’s lowest student-teacher ratio, 8.9, and highest spending per student. Current 2025–2026 test scores are suppressed, so they should be treated as unavailable rather than low.
Dayton Elementary School shows mixed results, with especially strong science performance: 53.57% proficiency in 2025–2026, slightly above the state. Math was above the district average, but fifth-grade math was a notable concern at 14.29%. Dayton Middle School has improved from its very low prior ranking, but remains the main academic concern, particularly in math, where proficiency was 20.83%. Eighth-grade ELA was also weak at 23.53%. For families comparing schools, the key pattern is strong high-school performance, promising elementary science results, and a need for focused support in middle-school math and the transition to higher grades. The alternative program is very small, with 13 students and no published achievement data, so direct comparisons are not appropriate.
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