Hockinson Middle School

Brush Prairie, WA · Grades 6–8

Portland-Vancouver-Hillsboro, OR-WA

Neighborhood

Decoded Rank

All factors combined

Top 15% decoded

#38 of 462

Portland-Vancouver-Hillsboro, OR-WA schools

★★ Outperforming Expectations

#164 in WA

Achievement Rank

Raw test performance

Top 30% achievement

#126 of 462

Portland-Vancouver-Hillsboro, OR-WA schools

#304 in WA

places from achievement to Decoded Rank

Raw achievement and decoded performance are both close to expected for this school's context.

Data confidence:High956 students tested 8 years98% 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 462

in Portland-Vancouver-Hillsboro, OR-WA schools

Raw test scores rank this school #126, but after accounting for context, students here outperform what the data would predict. The Decoded Rank places it at #38.

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?

  • 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?

  • 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%74+8.3
Students gain ground year over year 30%98+14.4
Equity within the school 15%50+0.0
Direction over recent years 10%50+0.0
Most students were tested 10%98+4.8

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)#126#38
WA (1506 schools)#304#164
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
480
Free/reduced-price lunch
30.4%
Student-teacher ratio
20.9:1
Locale
Rural, fringe
School type
Regular public school
Enrollment model
Neighborhood attendance area
Neighborhood median income
$115,685ACS tract proxy
Neighborhood poverty
0.0%ACS tract proxy
SES index
76.5
Assessment data year
2025
CCD year
2024
ACS vintage
2020-2024

Within Hockinson School District: #1 of 2. 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.

Two distinct groups are visible: a strong cluster at the top and a struggling cluster at the bottom.

  • Level 1 — Below standard15%
  • Level 2 — Approaching standard22%
  • Level 3 — Meets standard (proficient)30%
  • Level 4 — Exceeds standard32%

Why this matters. A bimodal distribution often reflects two student populations served side-by-side (for example a gifted or honors track alongside a general-population cohort). Aggregate scores can hide this. Look at the school's program mix when comparing.

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
Hockinson High School Rankings coming soon.
Hockinson Heights Elementary School#200#270High
Tukes Valley Primary#261#454High
Tukes Valley Middle School#273#196High
Daybreak Youth Services Rankings coming soon.

Similar Schools

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

SchoolAchievementDecodedShiftStoryConfidence
Horizon Middle School#22#31High
Hutton Elementary#6#39High
Lakeside High School Rankings coming soon.
Woodin Elementary#369#589High
Ridge View Elementary School#4#2High

Historical Ranks

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

YearAchievementDecodedShift
2025#126#38
2024#129#23
2023#149#25

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

Trajectory

2023: percentile 742024: percentile 792025: percentile 74

Holding steady

Based on 3 years (2023–2025).

Slope: -0.2 pct/yr (95% CI -37.1 to 36.6)

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 6th grade here in 2015 gained 9 proficiency points by 8th grade — gaining while the metro median is declining.

Based on 16 cohorts across math + ELA.

Learning rate: +13.5 proficiency points/yr (95% CI 7.5 to 19.4)

Medium confidence

Cohort 20152016201720182019202320242025 Slope
ELA · started 8th in 2015
G8
231
ELA · started 7th in 2015
G7
258
G8
273
+15.6
ELA · started 6th in 2015
G6
261
G7
260
G8
270
+4.3
ELA · started 6th in 2016
G6
275
G7
274
G8
286
+5.7
ELA · started 6th in 2017
G6
255
G7
270
G8
288
+16.3
ELA · started 6th in 2018
G6
261
G7
294
+33.6
ELA · started 6th in 2019
G6
303
ELA · started 8th in 2023
G8
284
ELA · started 7th in 2023
G7
267
G8
299
+31.2
ELA · started 6th in 2023
G6
284
G7
291
G8
311
+13.2
ELA · started 6th in 2024
G6
261
G7
281
+20.6
ELA · started 6th in 2025
G6
253
Math · started 8th in 2015
G8
265
Math · started 7th in 2015
G7
251
G8
272
+21.5
Math · started 6th in 2015
G6
252
G7
264
G8
258
+2.9
Math · started 6th in 2016
G6
274
G7
281
G8
248
-12.8
Math · started 6th in 2017
G6
248
G7
273
G8
263
+7.4
Math · started 6th in 2018
G6
259
G7
292
+33.0
Math · started 6th in 2019
G6
301
Math · started 8th in 2023
G8
252
Math · started 7th in 2023
G7
258
G8
271
+13.5
Math · started 6th in 2023
G6
273
G7
281
G8
300
+13.5
Math · started 6th in 2024
G6
252
G7
269
+16.8
Math · started 6th in 2025
G6
251

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)
+0.25 (95% CI: +0.20 to +0.30)

SES index components

SES method
Blended SES index (ACS + FRL)
SES index value
76.5
FRL %
30.4%
ELL %
SPED %
Tract median income (ACS 5-year)
$115,685
Tract poverty rate
0.0%
Tract % bachelor's+
35.2%

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 →