Colville Junior High School, Colville WA

Original Research by School Decision on Colville Junior High School

Colville Junior High School serves sixth through eighth grade in the small county seat of Colville in Stevens County, which is in the far northeast part of Washington. The town sits at the intersection of two major highways in a mountain valley, with an economy rooted in timber and agriculture and a downtown that centers on the county courthouse and government services. Major private employers include wood-products manufacturers and boat building. The town has grown slowly in recent years, and the school serves a student body that is overwhelmingly white and includes a substantial share of students who qualify for free or reduced-price lunch.

On the Smarter Balanced assessments for the most recent year, reading and writing results were stronger than math results at every grade level. For English language arts, roughly half of sixth graders met the bar, and the rate climbed well above that for seventh graders before settling back for eighth graders. In math, the picture was more uneven. About a quarter of sixth graders reached the proficient mark, while both seventh and eighth graders landed near half. Science results for eighth graders were in line with the stronger ELA figures. Looking across all tested subjects and grades, the school’s overall proficiency index sits above the midpoint when compared with other districts in Stevens County, a useful anchor for a parent trying to gauge how this school stacks up locally.

The school offers no career or technical education pathways, dual-credit courses, or Advanced Placement classes, as one would expect from a middle school that ends at eighth grade. Those options become available at the high school level in the Colville School District. The district itself saw no major changes or disruptions in recent years that a parent would need to track, based on publicly available reporting.

The peer environment at Colville Junior High is shaped by its size, which is typical for a rural middle school in the region. The student body is predominantly white, with a much smaller number of Hispanic students and very few students from other racial or ethnic backgrounds. A large majority of students come from households with incomes low enough to qualify for the federal lunch program, a rate that is high relative to many other parts of the state. Data on the share of students with disabilities and the share of English learners was not available in the material we reviewed, so a parent may want to ask the school directly about the full range of special education and language supports.

The school is located on the south side of Colville, away from the downtown core. As a junior high, it sits between the district’s elementary schools and the single high school, and it sends its graduates on to Colville High School. Because there are no recent state test results from prior years posted in the data we worked with, we cannot say whether performance is improving or declining. That means a parent looking for a trend will need to ask the school for prior-year data or wait until a second year of results accumulates.

For a family considering this school, the central question is fit. If a family values a small-town middle school where the academic picture is mixed, with ELA and science outcomes that are decent for the region and math results that are weaker, especially at the sixth-grade level, then this school is worth a close look. A parent whose child needs strong math intervention, particularly going into middle school, may want to ask how the school supports students who arrive below grade level. The combination of a high poverty rate and uneven test results is common in rural districts across Washington, and Colville Junior High sits in that familiar territory.

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Academic performance

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

Math

Grade 627%

School 27% · District 27% · ▲ 1 pts above district

▼ 10 pts below state median

Grade 748%

School 48% · District 46% · ▲ 2 pts above district

▲ 10 pts above state median

Grade 848%

School 48% · District 48%

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

English language arts

Grade 654%

School 54% · District 53% · ▲ 1 pts above district

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

Grade 763%

School 63% · District 62% · ▲ 1 pts above district

▲ 13 pts above state median

Grade 856%

School 56% · District 55% · ▲ 1 pts above district

▲ 6 pts above state median · even with county median

Science

Grade 855%

School 55% · District 54% · ▲ 1 pts above district

▲ 12 pts above state median

This schoolColville 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-income46%Higher-income51%4 pp gap

Grade 6Lower-income47%Higher-income70%23 pp gap

Grade 7Lower-income54%Higher-income78%24 pp gap

Grade 8Lower-income43%Higher-income82%39 pp gap

Mathematics

Grade 5Lower-income18%Higher-income27%9 pp gap

Grade 6Lower-income18%Higher-income48%30 pp gap

Grade 7Lower-income38%Higher-income63%25 pp gap

Grade 8Lower-income40%Higher-income64%24 pp gap