Stayton Elementary School

Stayton, OR · Grades K–3

Salem, OR

Neighborhood

Decoded Rank

All factors combined

Middle 40% decoded

#38 of 102

Salem, OR schools

Performing as Expected

#280 in OR

Achievement Rank

Raw test performance

Top 30% achievement

#22 of 102

Salem, OR schools

#273 in OR

places from achievement to Decoded Rank

Students score highly, but the school performs closer to expected once neighborhood context is considered.

Data confidence:Medium166 students tested 8 years92% participation

Confidence is computed from sample size, year coverage, and participation rate. Higher confidence means the rank shift is stable across years and not driven by a single small cohort.

  • Tested students: total students with valid scores across all reported years.
  • Years of data: number of school years included. More years smooths year-to-year noise.
  • Participation: share of enrolled students who took the assessment. Low participation can bias scores.

What's driving this rank

Decoded Rank: #38 of 102

in Salem, OR schools

Each component below is scored on a 0–100 within-metro scale. A qualitative band summarizes where the school lands.

  • Above averagePerforms above what its context predictsCounts for 35% of the rank

    After accounting for income and demographics, does this school beat what the data would predict?

  • Thin dataStudents gain ground year over yearCounts for 30% of the rank

    Are kids at this school learning faster than typical for the metro?

  • Below averageEquity within the schoolCounts for 15% of the rank

    Are students clustered at similar levels, or split between top and bottom?

  • About averageDirection over recent yearsCounts for 10% of the rank

    Is this school's Decoded Rank trending up or down across the years we have data for?

  • StrongMost students were testedCounts for 10% of the rank

    Was the rank computed against a representative share of the school's students?

Show the numbersFor the methodology-curious

Each component is converted to a 0–100 within-metro percentile (100 = top of the metro). "Contribution" is the percentile-points the component adds to (or subtracts from) the metro median before the schools are re-ranked into the composite.

Per-component contributions to this school's Decoded Rank composite. Weight is the share each component carries; percentile is the school's within-metro score on that component.
ComponentWeightPercentileContribution
Performs above what its context predicts 35%78+10.0
Students gain ground year over year · thin data30%50+0.0
Equity within the school 15%23-4.1
Direction over recent years 10%50+0.0
Most students were tested 10%92+4.2

How the Decoded Rank composite is computed

Why trust this?
  • Public data sources
  • Context-adjusted model
  • Confidence shown
  • Methodology published

This score uses state assessment data, NCES enrollment data, and Census ACS 5-year neighborhood data. The Decoded Rank adjusts for school context — student demographics, ELL/SPED service rates, and the socioeconomic profile of the surrounding tract — and shows how the school performs relative to expectation, not in absolute terms.

SchoolDecoder is one signal, not a verdict. Decoded Rank is a context-adjusted residual, not a causal claim about teaching quality. See full methodology →

All Rankings

How this school ranks across the metro, state, and among demographic peers.

ScopeAchievementDecodedShift
Salem, OR (102 schools)#22#38
OR (882 schools)#273#280
Among similar schools (6 peers)#2#4

Resource context

School inputs, not ranking points

These fields describe the school and surrounding neighborhood. They help readers interpret the page, but this is not a dollar-by-dollar or ratio-by-ratio scorecard and the fields here are not components of the Decoded Rank.

Enrollment
332
Free/reduced-price lunch
81.0%
Student-teacher ratio
14.4:1
Locale
Town, fringe
School type
Regular public school
Enrollment model
Neighborhood attendance area
Neighborhood median income
$78,624ACS tract proxy
Neighborhood poverty
0.1%ACS tract proxy
SES index
48.2
Assessment data year
2025
CCD year
2024
ACS vintage
2020-2024

Within North Santiam SD 29J: #3 of 4. View district

Performance Spread

How students are distributed across the four state-assessment proficiency levels — L1: below standard, L2: approaching, L3: meets (proficient), L4: exceeds. This describes the shape of results at the school, not their height.

Students at this school are typically spread across proficiency levels.

  • Level 1 — Below standard28%
  • Level 2 — Approaching standard25%
  • Level 3 — Meets standard (proficient)31%
  • Level 4 — Exceeds standard16%

Performance Spread measures how evenly students are distributed across the L1..L4 proficiency ladder, treating the levels as an ordered scale (L1=1, L2=2, L3=3, L4=4) and weighting each by its student share. A school where most students cluster at one level has a TIGHT spread; a school split between the bottom and top has a WIDE or BIMODAL spread. Bimodal fires only when BOTH tails are non-trivial AND the middle is relatively hollow (pct_L1 ≥ 15, pct_L4 ≥ 25, pct_L2 + pct_L3 ≤ 60). It describes shape — NOT how high the school's scores are. Methodology

Nearby Schools

Sorted by distance. Both rank columns shown so you can compare quickly.

SchoolAchievementDecodedShiftStoryConfidence
Stayton High School Rankings coming soon.
North Santiam Options Academy Rankings coming soon.
Stayton Middle School#59#80Medium
Sublimity School#10#24High
Cascade Opportunity Center Rankings coming soon.

Similar Schools

Schools with comparable demographics, income, and size. Both rank columns shown for direct comparison.

SchoolAchievementDecodedShiftStoryConfidence
Sunrise Elementary School#34#26High
Santiam Junior/Senior High School Rankings coming soon.
Hall Elementary School#454#261High
Winchester Elementary#27#28High
Periwinkle Elementary School#16#15High

Historical Ranks

Year-by-year decoded and achievement ranks. Pandemic-affected years are excluded — we don't interpolate scores across the gap.

YearAchievementDecodedShift
2025#22#38
2024#47#39
2023#50#40

Note: assessment transitions (where a state changes its test) are footnoted on the methodology page; trends are not computed across breakpoints.

Trajectory

2023: percentile 672024: percentile 672025: percentile 78

Trending up

Based on 3 years (2023–2025).

Slope: +5.7 pct/yr (95% CI -38.7 to 50.1)

Low confidence

How this works: we fit a linear trend across the available years of Decoded percentile, then bucket the slope into a direction. Wide confidence intervals (uncertain trends) collapse to Holding steady. See the methodology page for thresholds.

Growth / Learning Rate

Not published by Oregon.

Growth measures year-over-year progress for the same students tracked across grades — it needs longitudinal student-level records that the state has but doesn't release at the school level. Some states (CA, ID, TN) do publish this; Oregon doesn't.

For this school, SchoolDecoder shows multi-year context another way: the Historical Ranks section below tracks how the school's Decoded Rank has moved over the years we have data for, and the Subject Rankings above break out math vs. ELA performance per grade. Both are cross-sectional, not the same as growth, but together they cover most of what a parent would use growth data for.

Evidence & technical detailClick to expand

School Alpha

School Alpha is the residual between actual and expected performance once school context is held constant. It is a context-adjusted estimate, not a causal claim about teaching quality.

Shrunk Alpha (95% CI)
+0.16 (95% CI: +0.09 to +0.23)

SES index components

SES method
Blended SES index (ACS + FRL)
SES index value
48.2
FRL %
81.0%
ELL %
SPED %
Tract median income (ACS 5-year)
$78,624
Tract poverty rate
0.1%
Tract % bachelor's+
25.8%

What "Decoded Rank" means

Decoded Rank converts School Alpha — the context-adjusted residual — into a parent-facing rank within the metro pool. A higher Decoded Rank than Achievement Rank means the school's raw scores understate its performance once neighborhood and school context are held constant. The reverse means raw scores overstate it. The rank is one signal, not a verdict.

Data & sources

Assessment data
2024–25 school year
NCES CCD vintage
2024
Census ACS 5-year vintage
2020-2024
Last updated
May 29, 2026
Methodology version
0.2.0

SchoolDecoder publishes context-adjusted residuals, not causal estimates. Decoded Rank is one signal — not a verdict on teaching quality. Read about limitations →