The top reported proficiency rate is 25% in Math. The lowest is 13% in English language arts.
Original Research by School Decision on Sam Boardman Elementary School
Sam Boardman Elementary School serves students from kindergarten through sixth grade in Boardman, a small city on the Columbia River in northeastern Oregon. The town's economy is rooted in large-scale agriculture and industrial operations, including potato processing plants, data centers, and the Port of Morrow, the state’s second-largest port. The population is young and predominantly Hispanic or Latino, and the school’s enrollment reflects that, with a substantial share of students identifying as Hispanic. A majority of students at the school qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, indicating a high level of economic need.
The school is a regular public school and part of the Morrow SD 1 district. It does not serve high school grades, so there is no graduation rate to report. State testing data for the 2024-2025 school year is available only for third grade, with results for fourth, fifth, and sixth grades either suppressed or missing. That single data point shows that in third grade, proficiency rates in both math and English language arts were low. Because so many grade levels have suppressed or absent results, a parent may want to ask the school directly about its approach to assessment and how it tracks student progress across all elementary grades.
The school’s overall proficiency index, calculated from the available data, places Sam Boardman Elementary in the bottom quarter relative to the other districts in Morrow County. This comparison set is small, with only two districts in the county, so the range between them is narrow. There is no multi-year trend data available beyond a single year for math and English language arts, making it difficult to see whether performance is improving or declining over time.
Boardman itself has seen population growth in recent decades. The town has attracted Amazon data centers and other industrial expansion, and the city has pursued zoning changes to encourage more housing production. That growth context matters for a family considering the area, as it suggests continuing demand for school capacity. Yet the school's physical location and setting are unchanged; the town sits along Interstate 84 and has a highway-frontage commercial strip rather than a traditional walkable downtown.
The Morrow SD 1 district did not have any parent-relevant changes reported in recent news, so there are no policy shifts, boundary changes, or new programs to note.
For a family looking at Sam Boardman Elementary, the picture is one of a school serving a high-need community in a small industrial and agricultural town. The testing data is thin and, where available, shows low proficiency rates. A parent interested in how the school supports academic growth, particularly for English learners or students from low-income households, would want to discuss those supports with the school directly, since the data does not provide much detail on special populations or interventions. The school's size and composition are straightforward, and the community context is clear.
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