The top reported proficiency rate is 66% in Science. The lowest is 38% in Math.
Original Research by School Decision on Valley High
Valley High serves grades seven through twelve in Orderville, a small rural town in western Kane County situated along US Route 89 in the Long Valley carved by the East Fork of the Virgin River. The town is low-density and car-dependent, with a layout that traces back to its United Order founding, and its location roughly a short drive from Zion National Park brings some pass-through tourist traffic but little in the way of urban street life. This secondary school is the only one of its kind in the immediate area, drawing students from Orderville and the outlying communities of Mount Carmel and Mount Carmel Junction.
The student body is small for a combined middle and high school, and the enrollment leans heavily white. A modest share of students are Hispanic, and a few more identify as two or more races. About a third of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, a rate that situates the school around the national average for economic need in rural settings. The school is not a charter or magnet institution.
Academically, the available state testing data covers only the grades that participate in Utah’s RISE assessment, which runs through eighth grade. For the seventh and eighth graders at Valley High, math proficiency is below the midpoint, English language arts proficiency sits just below half, and science proficiency reaches about two-thirds of students tested. Because the school also serves high school grades, these results give a partial picture; no state testing data for grades nine through twelve was reported in the information we reviewed, so how students perform on high school assessments is not captured here. Graduation rate data was also absent, so a parent would want to ask the school directly about four-year completion figures and postsecondary readiness.
We looked for information on program offerings such as Advanced Placement, career and technical education, or dual-credit courses, and found none in the available data. The same is true for staffing ratios, discipline rates, and chronic absenteeism — these metrics were missing, which may reflect the school’s small size and status within its district. Kane District, which oversees Valley High, has no publicly reported recent strategic changes that would shape the school’s direction.
For families considering this school, the most concrete takeaway is the setting. Orderville is a quiet, slow-growing community where daily life requires a car, and the school building sits within a town that has a modest civic center but little conventional street activity. The housing market, based on the broader area, shows that home values are lower than the state average, which may matter for families moving in. Valley High offers a small-school environment where students move through both middle and high school in the same building, and the available test results point to science as a relative strength among the tested grades, while math and English are areas where a family might want to learn more about the school’s academic supports and curriculum. The absence of high school testing data and graduation metrics means that a fuller picture of outcomes for older students would need to come directly from the school or district.
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