Mount Markham Middle School, West Winfield NY

Original Research by School Decision on Mount Markham Middle School

Mount Markham Middle School serves fifth through eighth grade students in a rural upstate setting outside West Winfield, a small village in Herkimer County with a modest, service-oriented commercial base and a surrounding agricultural landscape. The school enrolls roughly three hundred students, with about half qualifying for free or reduced-price lunch. The student body is predominantly white, with very small percentages of students from other racial and ethnic backgrounds.

State testing results show a school in academic difficulty. In math, performance lags significantly as students progress through the grades: fifth graders show proficiency near the mid-range, but sixth through eighth grade proficiency drops sharply to roughly one-fifth or less of students meeting standards. English language arts is similarly uneven. Fifth graders perform near mid-range in both math and ELA, and eighth graders in ELA show stronger results, but sixth and seventh graders in both subjects fall well below proficiency benchmarks, with seventh grade ELA proficiency around one-fifth. Science is a relative strength: fifth and eighth graders show proficiency rates around half or above, with eighth grade performing notably higher. Overall, the school's proficiency index places it above the midpoint among Herkimer County's districts, but that aggregate position masks a serious slide in student performance across the middle grades, particularly in math and language arts in grades six and seven. A parent may want to look into this further with the school to understand what instructional approaches are in place to address this decline and support struggling students in those grade bands.

Assessment participation rates are reasonably strong, ranging from about four-fifths to near-complete, indicating consistent engagement with state testing.

The locale is a car-dependent rural village and town with a durable but aging housing stock built largely before World War II. Housing prices are well below both state and national medians, and the median household income positions the area among the lower-income regions in the state, which aligns with the school's elevated free and reduced lunch rate. The district has maintained disciplined spending, with property tax increases held to a modest, consistent level for years and voters continuing to approve annual budgets without rejection, a sign of stable, predictable funding for the schools. The school itself sits on a separated campus on the northeastern edge of the village rather than in the downtown core, typical of rural school placement in the region.

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Academic performance

How students perform on state tests, by grade, set against the district.

New York Regents Exams

2 courses reported · 2024-25

End-of-course exams required for a New York Regents diploma. Each row shows the cohort size and the share of students scoring at the proficient level or higher.

Course	Students tested	% proficient
Science	8	100.0%
Math	7	100.0%

Math

Grade 548%

School 48% · District 48%

▼ 3 pts below state median · ▲ 6 pts above county median

Grade 621%

School 21% · District 21%

▼ 24 pts below state median · ▼ 16 pts below county median

Grade 725%

School 25% · District 24% · ▲ 1 pts above district

▼ 28 pts below state median · ▼ 23 pts below county median

Grade 822%

School 22% · District 21% · ▲ 1 pts above district

▼ 15 pts below state median · ▼ 7 pts below county median

English language arts

Grade 548%

School 48% · District 48%

▼ 6 pts below state median · ▲ 7 pts above county median

Grade 636%

School 36% · District 36%

▼ 10 pts below state median · ▼ 7 pts below county median

Grade 721%

School 21% · District 20% · ▲ 1 pts above district

▼ 27 pts below state median · ▼ 21 pts below county median

Grade 850%

School 50% · District 48% · ▲ 2 pts above district

▲ 2 pts above state median · ▲ 8 pts above county median

Science

Grade 552%

School 52% · District 52%

▲ 10 pts above state median · ▲ 12 pts above county median

Grade 859%

School 59% · District 57% · ▲ 2 pts above district

▲ 26 pts above state median · ▲ 13 pts above county median

Social studies

Grade 587%

School 87% · district not reported

▼ 4 pts below state median

Grade 883%

School 83% · district not reported

▲ 5 pts above state median

This schoolMOUNT MARKHAM CENTRAL SCHOOL DISTRICT, same grade

Graduation rate (ACGR) reflects the federally published Adjusted Cohort Graduation Rate for the most recent year available. We refresh this data annually at the close of each academic year in June. The federal source publishes a banded rate (for example, "90-94%") instead of an exact number for cohorts small enough to risk identifying individual students. The state distribution chart, where shown, plots every school in the state with a published rate or band; schools whose rate is federally suppressed are excluded. Where the federal source publishes a band rather than an exact rate, the school is placed within its band using a stable, ID-derived offset, so its position is consistent across visits.

Proficiency by household income

English language arts

Grade 5Lower-income44%Higher-income52%8 pp gap

Grade 6Lower-income26%Higher-income46%20 pp gap

Grade 7Lower-income18%Higher-income23%5 pp gap

Grade 8Lower-income56%Higher-income45%11 pp gap

Mathematics

Grade 5Lower-income52%Higher-income45%7 pp gap

Grade 6Lower-income15%Higher-income27%11 pp gap

Grade 7Lower-income19%Higher-income29%11 pp gap

Grade 8Lower-income24%Higher-income21%3 pp gap