Walter Strom Middle School

Walter Strom Middle School is a public school serving 206 students in grades 6–8 in the small Cle Elum community, as part of the Cle Elum-Roslyn School District. The school currently ranks 249th of 514 Washington middle schools, placing it in the 52nd percentile statewide and making it a midrange school overall.

Science is the school’s strongest academic area: 53.45% of students were proficient in 2025–26, slightly above both district and state rates. ELA proficiency was 43.02% and math proficiency was 37.43%, below statewide results. Grade-level differences are especially important. Seventh graders performed strongly in both ELA and math, with proficiency rates of 67.24% and 49.12%, respectively—above state rates in both subjects. Sixth- and eighth-grade students were below the state in both areas, with eighth-grade ELA at 29.31% and math at 31.03%. This suggests that improvement efforts may need to focus especially on sixth- and eighth-grade literacy and math, while examining what is working well in seventh grade and science.

The school’s overall ranking has recovered from the 26th percentile in 2021–22 but has fluctuated, falling from the 61st percentile in 2024–25 to the current 52nd percentile. Its low-income student effectiveness ranking is a relative strength at the 69th percentile, although this is a comparative effectiveness measure rather than a direct achievement rate. The student-teacher ratio was 19.5 in the latest reported year, improved from 22.3, and reported spending increased to $17,842 per student in 2023–24. No other schools were supplied within 20 miles, so meaningful nearby-school comparisons are not available; the most useful benchmarks are the district, Washington statewide results, and the school’s own year-to-year trends.