Deep Creek - Damascus K-8 School, Damascus OR

Original Research by School Decision on Deep Creek - Damascus K-8 School

Deep Creek – Damascus K-8 School is a regular public school in the Gresham-Barlow School District, serving kindergarten through eighth grade. It sits in the unincorporated community of Damascus, Oregon, a place with an unusual recent history: it was incorporated as a city, went through a turbulent existence that included rapid turnover in city management, and then voted to disincorporate, a decision ultimately upheld by the state supreme court. Today Damascus is a residential area served by Clackamas County, with a suburban-to-rural feel, large lots, and no central downtown. The school itself is one of several within the district that serve this broad geography.

The student body is predominantly white, with a modest Hispanic share and a small number of students from other racial backgrounds. More than a third of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, indicating that a substantial share of families have lower incomes. The school is not a charter or magnet. The district, Gresham-Barlow, is publicly reported to be the second-largest employer in the Damascus area; beyond that, few major employers sit within the community itself, and residents likely commute to nearby employment centers.

On state assessments, Deep Creek – Damascus shows a mixed profile that varies noticeably by grade level. In English language arts, the strongest performance by a clear margin comes in seventh grade, where a large majority of students met proficiency, a level that stands out as a strength. Other grades in ELA are more uneven. Third and fourth grade hover around half proficient, fifth and sixth grade are below that mark, and eighth grade falls to a point where only a little over a third of students are proficient. In math, the pattern is similarly variable. Seventh grade again leads, with just over half proficient, followed by third and eighth grade near that same level. Fourth and sixth grade sit at about two-fifths proficient, and fifth grade drops to about a third. Science results, tested in fifth and eighth grades, show that fewer than a third of students met the proficiency bar in both years, a soft spot a parent may want to ask the school about.

Because the data covers only a single year, there is no trend to track. Overall, the school's combined proficiency across all grades and subjects places it above the midpoint when compared with other districts in Clackamas County. That is a positive relative position, but the unevenness across grades and subjects means the school does not deliver a consistently strong result for every classroom.

The school serves grades K through 8, so there is no high school graduation rate to report. Information on special education and English learner populations was not available in the data provided. No data on discipline, course access, or staffing was present either, so those dimensions of the school environment cannot be characterized here.

The housing market in the area reflects typical conditions for this part of the Portland region. Home values are well above the national median but have seen a slight decline over the past year. The economic context shows a national unemployment rate that is low by historical standards, and real median household income has been rising slowly in recent years, though the cost of buying a home relative to income remains high.

For a parent considering this school, the takeaway is that Deep Creek – Damascus offers a K-8 pathway in a community that is residential and quiet, without the amenities of a city center. Academically, the school's relative standing in the county is above average, but the performance is not uniform. The strong seventh-grade results in both ELA and math suggest something is working well at that level, while the lower proficiency in science and in some of the upper elementary grades are areas worth investigating. Families who value a single campus for their child from kindergarten through middle school will find that here, in a setting that is neither urban nor fully rural.

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Academic performance

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

Math

Grade 351%

School 51% · District 24% · ▲ 27 pts above district

▲ 12 pts above state median · ▲ 3 pts above county median

Grade 442%

School 42% · District 21% · ▲ 21 pts above district

▲ 8 pts above state median · even with county median

Grade 533%

School 33% · District 20% · ▲ 12 pts above district

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

Grade 642%

School 42% · District 17% · ▲ 25 pts above district

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

Grade 754%

School 54% · District 18% · ▲ 36 pts above district

▲ 24 pts above state median · ▲ 15 pts above county median

Grade 850%

School 50% · District 17% · ▲ 33 pts above district

▲ 23 pts above state median · ▲ 19 pts above county median

English language arts

Grade 349%

School 49% · District 27% · ▲ 22 pts above district

▲ 9 pts above state median · ▲ 1 pts above county median

Grade 453%

School 53% · District 30% · ▲ 23 pts above district

▲ 12 pts above state median · ▲ 4 pts above county median

Grade 546%

School 46% · District 41% · ▲ 5 pts above district

even with state median · ▼ 8 pts below county median

Grade 642%

School 42% · District 29% · ▲ 13 pts above district

▲ 2 pts above state median · ▼ 1 pts below county median

Grade 771%

School 71% · District 29% · ▲ 42 pts above district

▲ 27 pts above state median · ▲ 19 pts above county median

Grade 839%

School 39% · District 30% · ▲ 8 pts above district

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

Science

Grade 528%

School 28% · District 21% · ▲ 8 pts above district

even with state median · ▼ 6 pts below county median

Grade 833%

School 33% · District 17% · ▲ 16 pts above district

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

This schoolGresham-Barlow SD 10J, 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.