Scotts Mills Elementary School

Scotts Mills, OR · Grades K–8

Salem, OR

Neighborhood

Decoded Rank

All factors combined

Middle 40% decoded

#61 of 102

Salem, OR schools

Performing as Expected

#529 in OR

Achievement Rank

Raw test performance

Middle 40% achievement

#42 of 102

Salem, OR schools

#500 in OR

places from achievement to Decoded Rank

This school performs roughly as expected for its context.

Data confidence:Medium116 students tested 8 years99% 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: #61 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.

  • Below 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?

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

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

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

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

  • LowDirection 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%25-8.9
Students gain ground year over year 30%89+11.7
Equity within the school 15%45-0.7
Direction over recent years 10%0-5.0
Most students were tested 10%99+4.9

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)#42#61
OR (882 schools)#500#529
Among similar schools (6 peers)#4#3

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
141
Free/reduced-price lunch
51.1%
Student-teacher ratio
20.1:1
Locale
Rural, distant
School type
Regular public school
Enrollment model
Neighborhood attendance area
Neighborhood median income
$120,564ACS tract proxy
Neighborhood poverty
0.0%ACS tract proxy
SES index
85.2
Assessment data year
2025
CCD year
2024
ACS vintage
2020-2024

Within Silver Falls SD 4J: #7 of 11.Bottom-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 typically spread across proficiency levels.

  • Level 1 — Below standard38%
  • Level 2 — Approaching standard33%
  • Level 3 — Meets standard (proficient)16%
  • Level 4 — Exceeds standard14%

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
Mark Twain Elementary#30#87High
John F Kennedy High School Rankings coming soon.
St Marys Public School#35#10High
Silverton Middle School#37#97Medium
Mt Angel Middle School#21#5High

Similar Schools

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

SchoolAchievementDecodedShiftStoryConfidence
Central Howell Elementary School#34#39Medium
Silver Crest Elementary School#25#62Medium
Community School Rankings coming soon.
Clemens Primary School Rankings coming soon.
Ione Community Charter School#18#29Low

Historical Ranks

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

YearAchievementDecodedShift
2025#42#61
2024#38#33
2023#30#30

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

Trajectory

2023: percentile 472024: percentile 412025: percentile 25

Trending down

Based on 3 years (2023–2025).

Slope: -11.2 pct/yr (95% CI -51.0 to 28.5)

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 gained 26 proficiency points by 7th grade — gaining about 5× the metro median rate.

Cohort-to-cohort variance is high — interpret the headline cautiously.

Learning rate: +9.0 proficiency points/yr (95% CI -1.3 to 19.3)

Medium confidence

Cohort 20152016201720182019202320242025 Slope
ELA · started 8th in 2015
G8
300
ELA · started 7th in 2015
G7
228
G8
283
+55.7
ELA · started 6th in 2015
G6
256
G7
318
G8
336
+40.1
ELA · started 5th in 2015
G5
262
G6
293
G7
228
G8
282
-0.4
ELA · started 4th in 2015
G4
282
G5
290
G6
200
G7
227
G8
293
-4.1
ELA · started 3rd in 2015
G3
300
G4
244
G5
279
G6
279
G7
327
+8.7
ELA · started 3rd in 2016
G3
247
G4
229
G5
267
G6
287
+15.7
ELA · started 3rd in 2017
G3
255
G4
300
G5
306
+25.3
ELA · started 3rd in 2018
G3
246
G4
282
G8
233
-5.3
ELA · started 3rd in 2019
G3
238
G7
240
G8
247
+1.4
ELA · started 6th in 2023
G6
229
G7
209
G8
-19.4
ELA · started 5th in 2023
G5
263
G6
185
G7
-78.2
ELA · started 4th in 2023
G4
204
G5
221
G6
213
+4.4
ELA · started 3rd in 2023
G3
183
G4
200
G5
219
+17.9
ELA · started 3rd in 2024
G3
185
G4
250
+65.2
ELA · started 3rd in 2025
G3
221
Math · started 8th in 2015
G8
230
Math · started 7th in 2015
G7
230
G8
242
+11.7
Math · started 6th in 2015
G6
239
G7
245
G8
307
+33.8
Math · started 5th in 2015
G5
231
G6
220
G7
222
G8
300
+20.9
Math · started 4th in 2015
G4
218
G5
200
G6
164
G7
254
G8
340
+29.7
Math · started 3rd in 2015
G3
282
G4
238
G5
214
G6
262
G7
280
+2.1
Math · started 3rd in 2016
G3
187
G4
212
G5
189
G6
220
+7.8
Math · started 3rd in 2017
G3
215
G4
241
G5
241
+13.0
Math · started 3rd in 2018
G3
200
G4
233
G8
258
+10.2
Math · started 3rd in 2019
G3
238
G7
257
G8
282
+7.8
Math · started 6th in 2023
G6
193
G7
218
G8
+25.6
Math · started 5th in 2023
G5
200
G6
162
G7
-38.3
Math · started 4th in 2023
G4
G5
183
G6
175
-8.1
Math · started 3rd in 2023
G3
183
G4
191
G5
163
-10.4
Math · started 3rd in 2024
G3
177
G4
191
+14.3
Math · started 3rd in 2025
G3
221

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)
-0.67 (95% CI: -0.75 to -0.59)

SES index components

SES method
Blended SES index (ACS + FRL)
SES index value
85.2
FRL %
51.1%
ELL %
SPED %
Tract median income (ACS 5-year)
$120,564
Tract poverty rate
0.0%
Tract % bachelor's+
38.1%

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

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