Willamette Elementary School

McMinnville, OR · Grades K–5

Portland-Vancouver-Hillsboro, OR-WA

Neighborhood

Decoded Rank

All factors combined

Top 30% decoded

#86 of 462

Portland-Vancouver-Hillsboro, OR-WA schools

★ Above Expected

#206 in OR

Achievement Rank

Raw test performance

Middle 40% achievement

#225 of 462

Portland-Vancouver-Hillsboro, OR-WA schools

#366 in OR

places from achievement to Decoded Rank

Raw scores understate this school's performance; its decoded rank is substantially higher.

Data confidence:High456 students tested 8 years97% 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: #86 of 462

in Portland-Vancouver-Hillsboro, OR-WA schools

Raw test scores rank this school #225, but after accounting for context, students here outperform what the data would predict. The Decoded Rank places it at #86.

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?

  • Above averageStudents 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?

  • StrongDirection 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%72+7.7
Students gain ground year over year 30%73+7.0
Equity within the school 15%24-4.0
Direction over recent years 10%100+5.0
Most students were tested 10%97+4.7

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
Portland-Vancouver-Hillsboro, OR-WA (462 schools)#225#86
OR (882 schools)#366#206
Among similar schools (6 peers)#4#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
443
Free/reduced-price lunch
79.9%
Student-teacher ratio
14.8:1
Locale
Town, distant
School type
Regular public school
Enrollment model
Neighborhood attendance area
Neighborhood median income
$71,417ACS tract proxy
Neighborhood poverty
0.2%ACS tract proxy
SES index
35.2
Assessment data year
2025
CCD year
2024
ACS vintage
2020-2024

Within McMinnville SD 40: #3 of 8.Top-40% in district. 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 broadly spread across proficiency levels.

  • Level 1 — Below standard36%
  • Level 2 — Approaching standard26%
  • Level 3 — Meets standard (proficient)21%
  • Level 4 — Exceeds standard17%

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
Newby Elementary School#274#330High
Duniway Middle School#113#20High
Sue Buel Elementary#312#163High
Memorial Elementary School#91#209High
McMinnville High School Rankings coming soon.

Similar Schools

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

SchoolAchievementDecodedShiftStoryConfidence
Central Point Elementary School#26#40Medium
Hillcrest Elementary School#1#5High
Newby Elementary School#274#330High
Laurel Elementary School#22#21High
Hollydale Elementary School#402#426Medium

Historical Ranks

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

YearAchievementDecodedShift
2025#225#86
2024#227#56
2023#298#132

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

Trajectory

2023: percentile 532024: percentile 672025: percentile 72

Trending up

Based on 3 years (2023–2025).

Slope: +9.3 pct/yr (95% CI -21.6 to 40.3)

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.

Cohort Progression

Kids who started 3rd grade here in 2015 lost 11 proficiency points by 5th grade — gaining while the metro median is declining.

Based on 16 cohorts across math + ELA.

Learning rate: +2.8 proficiency points/yr (95% CI -5.2 to 10.7)

Medium confidence

Cohort 20152016201720182019202320242025 Slope
ELA · started 5th in 2015
G5
243
ELA · started 4th in 2015
G4
262
G5
270
+7.4
ELA · started 3rd in 2015
G3
249
G4
263
G5
237
-5.6
ELA · started 3rd in 2016
G3
261
G4
251
G5
270
+4.4
ELA · started 3rd in 2017
G3
248
G4
258
G5
287
+19.9
ELA · started 3rd in 2018
G3
270
G4
262
-8.2
ELA · started 3rd in 2019
G3
239
ELA · started 5th in 2023
G5
231
ELA · started 4th in 2023
G4
204
G5
229
+25.1
ELA · started 3rd in 2023
G3
202
G4
225
G5
244
+21.0
ELA · started 3rd in 2024
G3
230
G4
222
-8.1
ELA · started 3rd in 2025
G3
215
Math · started 5th in 2015
G5
220
Math · started 4th in 2015
G4
236
G5
238
+2.5
Math · started 3rd in 2015
G3
251
G4
259
G5
224
-13.5
Math · started 3rd in 2016
G3
280
G4
279
G5
273
-3.1
Math · started 3rd in 2017
G3
257
G4
267
G5
264
+3.6
Math · started 3rd in 2018
G3
291
G4
268
-22.8
Math · started 3rd in 2019
G3
252
Math · started 5th in 2023
G5
205
Math · started 4th in 2023
G4
173
G5
202
+28.9
Math · started 3rd in 2023
G3
199
G4
205
G5
208
+4.6
Math · started 3rd in 2024
G3
240
G4
211
-29.6
Math · started 3rd in 2025
G3
216

How this works: we follow each grade-cohort across years through the school (3rd graders in 2023 are 4th graders in 2024, etc.) and fit a linear slope on a 100–400 proficiency-points scale built from the state assessment's four levels (L1=1, L2=2, L3=3, L4=4, weighted by student share). This is the same construction Stanford SEDA uses (edopportunity.org/methods); it's not student-level tracking — we measure the school's cohort, not individuals. See the methodology page for thresholds.

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)
+0.21 (95% CI: +0.19 to +0.23)

SES index components

SES method
Blended SES index (ACS + FRL)
SES index value
35.2
FRL %
79.9%
ELL %
SPED %
Tract median income (ACS 5-year)
$71,417
Tract poverty rate
0.2%
Tract % bachelor's+
22.1%

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

Cross-state metro note: This metro spans state lines. Both states use Smarter Balanced assessments with a common scale for grades 3–8 ELA/math. Context-adjusted ranks are computed within each state's testing context, then aggregated across the metro.

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