Original Research by School Decision on West High School
West High School in Davenport serves around fourteen hundred students in grades nine through twelve, making it one of the larger high schools in the Davenport Community School District. It is a regular public high school, not a charter or magnet, and sits on the west side of the city. The student body is mixed; roughly half of the students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch. Racially, the school is majority white, with a strong Hispanic presence, a notable Black population, and a substantial share of students who identify as two or more races. The Asian and Native American populations are very small. Information on the share of students with disabilities or those learning English was not available in the data provided.
On the most recent state assessments, covering English language arts, math, and science, fewer than half of West High students scored at the proficient level across all three subjects. The proficiency rate was just under half in English language arts, and below two-fifths in both math and science. These are single-year figures with no prior trend to compare against, so it is not possible from this data to say whether performance is improving or declining. A parent looking for academic strength may want to ask the school about its specific instructional supports and how it tracks growth over time.
The school has a nearly even split across the four grade levels, with each grade holding around 350 to 375 students. The total enrollment is stable enough to suggest a consistent feeder pattern from the district’s middle schools. The district itself serves Davenport, a mid-sized Mississippi River city that was long an industrial hub but has seen its manufacturing base shrink over several decades and its population flatten. Housing in the area is at a moderate price point relative to national benchmarks, with home values and rents that have both ticked up moderately. The typical home is priced well below the national median, and rent is a manageable slice of income. The local economy is anchored by healthcare, county government, two universities, and the school district itself, with manufacturing no longer the dominant force it once was.
No data was available on disciplinary actions, course access such as Advanced Placement or dual enrollment, staffing ratios, chronic absenteeism, or the graduation rate. These are meaningful gaps for a high school, and a family considering West High should follow up with the school directly on each of these. The comparison framework that positions the school among districts in Scott County relies on metrics that are all missing for this entity, so there is no county-level benchmark to place it against its neighbors.
The district brief turned up no specific recent changes such as referendum results, curriculum shifts, or boundary adjustments, so it is not clear from this information whether the district is in a period of stability or transition. Davenport itself offers a range of riverfront parks, cultural institutions like the Figge Art Museum, and annual festivals, but the city’s schools are spread across individual campuses rather than clustered in a walkable center. The overall picture of West High is of a comprehensive public high school in a mid-sized, post-industrial city, serving a diverse student body with proficiency rates that sit below a majority level, and with significant gaps in the available data that a family would want to explore further.
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