Mountainside Middle School, Colbert WA

Original Research by School Decision on Mountainside Middle School

Mountainside Middle School sits on Day Mt. Spokane Road in Colbert, an unincorporated residential community about a 15-mile drive north of Spokane along US Route 2. Once a lumber boomtown with five sawmills in the early 1900s, Colbert is now a low-density rural area with scattered homes and limited commercial services. There is no traditional downtown. The school is one of several campuses in the Mead School District, feeding from Colbert Elementary and Midway Elementary on up to Mount Spokane High School. The built environment is spread out along rural roads, and civic life centers on places like Bidwell Park, which has a pool, playground, tennis and basketball courts, and baseball fields. No public library branch or transit hub sits within Colbert itself.

Mountainside serves grades six through eight and enrolls a mid-sized student body for a middle school. The student population is predominantly white, with smaller shares of students who are Hispanic, two or more races, Black, Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander, Asian, and American Indian or Alaska Native. A substantial portion of students come from households that qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, which adds economic diversity to a community that has seen its median home value rise markedly in recent years and is described as having an affluent residential character.

On state assessments in the 2024-25 school year, Mountainside’s students showed a mixed profile. In English language arts, proficiency rates were higher at the seventh- and eighth-grade levels than at sixth grade. In math, the pattern was more even across grades but overall lower than ELA. Eighth-grade science proficiency landed in the middle. Taken together, the school’s overall proficiency across subjects and grades sits above the midpoint among the districts in Spokane County, though below the top performers in the county. Only one year of assessment data is available in the record, so no year-to-year trend can be drawn.

No information was available on the share of students with disabilities or English learners, discipline rates, staffing ratios, or course access. Parents may want to ask the school about these areas directly.

The Mead School District, which operates Mountainside, has stable funding through 2027 after voters approved a replacement Educational Programs and Operations levy in early 2023 with a strong yes vote. The levy covers a notable portion of the district’s operating budget and supports staff, curriculum, technology, athletics, and extracurriculars.

For families considering the area, Colbert offers a rural setting with few services within the community itself; most employment and amenities lie in Spokane. The school provides a solid academic foundation relative to other Spokane County schools, with ELA results standing out somewhat more than math, but not at the top tier of the county. The combination of a middle-of-the-pack proficiency profile, a suburban-rural location, and a district with recently renewed levy support gives a steady, if unexceptional, picture for a family weighing middle school options in this part of Washington.

See more original research from School Decision →

Academic performance

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

Math

Grade 642%

School 42% · District 27% · ▲ 15 pts above district

▲ 5 pts above state median · even with county median

Grade 745%

School 45% · District 48% · ▼ 3 pts below district

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

Grade 848%

School 48% · District 36% · ▲ 11 pts above district

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

English language arts

Grade 648%

School 48% · District 55% · ▼ 7 pts below district

even with state median · ▼ 1 pts below county median

Grade 763%

School 63% · District 27% · ▲ 35 pts above district

▲ 12 pts above state median · ▲ 5 pts above county median

Grade 863%

School 63% · District 27% · ▲ 36 pts above district

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

Science

Grade 850%

School 50% · District 47% · ▲ 3 pts above district

▲ 8 pts above state median · ▲ 5 pts above county median

This schoolMead 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-income52%Higher-income75%24 pp gap

Grade 6Lower-income34%Higher-income60%25 pp gap

Grade 7Lower-income54%Higher-income70%16 pp gap

Grade 8Lower-income47%Higher-income74%27 pp gap

Mathematics

Grade 5Lower-income34%Higher-income52%18 pp gap

Grade 6Lower-income27%Higher-income55%27 pp gap

Grade 7Lower-income36%Higher-income52%17 pp gap

Grade 8Lower-income36%Higher-income56%20 pp gap