Three Rivers Elementary School, Sunriver OR

Original Research by School Decision on Three Rivers Elementary School

Three Rivers Elementary School sits in Sunriver, a planned resort community that is not an incorporated town, roughly fifteen miles south of Bend within the Deschutes National Forest. The community’s permanent population tends to be older and higher-income, with a large share of housing used as second homes or vacation rentals rather than primary residences. That seasonal, resort-oriented character shapes the school’s setting: Three Rivers is a regular public school serving kindergarten through eighth grade, located not within Sunriver itself but on a campus outside the community. The school belongs to the Bend-La Pine Schools district, which means its context includes a school system that passed a major construction bond in 2022 and opened a new high school, Caldera High School, in fall 2021 to keep up with growth in the larger Bend area.

On state assessments, Three Rivers shows a split pattern. In English language arts, proficiency rates in grades three, four, and five are solid, with a clear majority of students meeting the bar. That strength fades in the middle grades: sixth, seventh, and eighth graders post much lower proficiency rates in English, a drop that is large enough that a family considering this school for the full K–8 span may want to discuss with the school how literacy instruction and support shifts in the upper grades. Math follows a similar but more pronounced decline. Third graders post a proficiency rate that is close to the state midpoint, and fourth grade holds near that same level, but by fifth grade the rate drops noticeably, and by sixth grade it falls substantially, with only a small share of students meeting the standard. Seventh and eighth grade math performance does not recover from that low point. In science, tested in fifth and eighth grades, the results are also low, especially in eighth grade. The school’s overall proficiency index, averaging across all tested subjects and grades, lands below the midpoint when placed relative to other districts in Deschutes County.

The enrollment is small at this school, with about that many students across kindergarten through eighth grade, and a substantial share qualifies for free or reduced-price meals, which indicates that its student body includes many families facing economic pressure even within an affluent resort community. The student population is heavily white, with small shares of Hispanic students, students of two or more races, and other groups. Data on students receiving special education services or English learner support were not available.

The school does not serve high school grades, so there is no graduation rate to report. Information on course offerings, teacher staffing, chronic absenteeism, and discipline was not available in the data provided, so no assessment of those dimensions is possible here.

Sunriver itself has no traditional downtown, no public transit, and is car-dependent for connections to Bend. The Village at Sunriver functions as the commercial core, and the community offers extensive paved biking and walking paths, the Sunriver Nature Center and Observatory, and other recreational anchors. For families, the lack of a traditional town center and the distance to the school campus mean a car is essential. The Bend-La Pine district’s 2022 bond and new high school construction signal investment in capacity, but those district-wide changes do not directly tell a family how this particular school handles the middle-grade academic dip that the testing data shows.

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Academic performance

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

Math

Grade 359%

School 59% · District 52% · ▲ 7 pts above district

▲ 21 pts above state median · ▲ 11 pts above county median

Grade 452%

School 52% · District 47% · ▲ 5 pts above district

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

Grade 541%

School 41% · District 39% · ▲ 3 pts above district

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

Grade 617%

School 17% · District 41% · ▼ 24 pts below district

▼ 10 pts below state median · ▼ 12 pts below county median

Grade 729%

School 29% · District 41% · ▼ 13 pts below district

▼ 1 pts below state median · ▼ 8 pts below county median

Grade 833%

School 33% · District 40% · ▼ 7 pts below district

▲ 6 pts above state median · even with county median

English language arts

Grade 366%

School 66% · District 52% · ▲ 14 pts above district

▲ 26 pts above state median · ▲ 17 pts above county median

Grade 461%

School 61% · District 57% · ▲ 4 pts above district

▲ 20 pts above state median · ▲ 9 pts above county median

Grade 566%

School 66% · District 58% · ▲ 8 pts above district

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

Grade 641%

School 41% · District 52% · ▼ 12 pts below district

even with state median · ▼ 5 pts below county median

Grade 737%

School 37% · District 56% · ▼ 19 pts below district

▼ 8 pts below state median · ▼ 12 pts below county median

Grade 837%

School 37% · District 51% · ▼ 14 pts below district

▼ 4 pts below state median · ▼ 5 pts below county median

Science

Grade 534%

School 34% · District 35% · ▼ 1 pts below district

▲ 6 pts above state median · ▼ 2 pts below county median

Grade 816%

School 16% · District 32% · ▼ 16 pts below district

▼ 10 pts below state median · ▼ 11 pts below county median

This schoolBend-LaPine Administrative SD 1, 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.