The top reported proficiency rate is 39% in English language arts. The lowest is 31% in Math.
Original Research by School Decision on La Venture Middle School
La Venture Middle School serves grades six through eight in Mount Vernon, as part of the Mount Vernon School District. It is a regular public school, not a charter or magnet. The student body is large for a middle school in this area, and the enrollment is heavily Hispanic, with a substantial white minority and small shares of Asian, Black, multiracial, and Native students. More than three-quarters of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, a high rate that places the school in a lower-income context relative to the broader community.
Mount Vernon is the county seat and most populous city in Skagit County, roughly sixty miles north of Seattle. It is the civic and commercial hub of the Skagit River Valley, with a historic downtown core, a transit hub at Skagit Station, and surrounding agricultural land known for the annual Skagit Valley Tulip Festival. The city has grown moderately in recent decades and recently opened a new multi-use community center downtown that includes the largest municipally owned electric vehicle charging station in the country. Housing values in the area are roughly in line with the state average, and rents have been rising. The city’s economy is a mix of government, agriculture, and healthcare, though specific major private employers were not identified in the available public information.
On state assessments, La Venture Middle School’s results are mixed and mostly place below statewide averages. In math, proficiency across all three tested grades combined was modest, with a notable difference by grade: seventh graders performed higher than both sixth and eighth graders. In English language arts, the combined proficiency rate was similar, with seventh graders again the strongest cohort and sixth and eighth graders lower. Science, tested only in eighth grade, reached about one-third proficient. The school’s overall proficiency index, which averages across all tested subjects and grades, sits above the midpoint among districts in Skagit County, meaning it performs roughly in the middle of the pack relative to other local districts but not near the top of the county. There is only one year of data available, so no trend can be assessed.
The district has implemented several recent changes that affect this middle school. In 2023, it adopted a new elementary literacy curriculum, EL Education, though that directly applies to lower grades. More relevant to the middle school level, the district began scaling a Multi-Tiered System of Supports district-wide starting in the 2023–24 school year, a framework aimed at providing targeted academic and behavioral interventions based on student need. This is explicitly cited in the district’s improvement plan as a key strategy for raising outcomes, and families may want to ask how fully this is operational at La Venture. Voters approved a replacement operating levy in 2024 that funds special education, transportation, athletics, and extracurriculars, and a capital projects levy in 2022 is paying for building improvements including roof replacements and HVAC upgrades. The school board also adopted a gender inclusion policy in 2023 providing guidelines for transgender and gender-expansive students.
No data was available on student-teacher ratios, discipline rates, chronic absenteeism, or the share of students with disabilities or who are English learners. These are significant gaps for any middle school. Parents may want to contact the school directly for that information, as it speaks to the day-to-day experience of students and the support structures in place. No graduation rate applies because the school ends at eighth grade.
La Venture Middle School fits a family looking for a large, diverse public middle school in a small-city setting that serves as the commercial and civic center of Skagit County, with a student population that is majority Hispanic and low-income. The academic proficiency numbers are on the lower side relative to the state, though in line with the middle of the county, and the district is investing in a system of support that it hopes will move those numbers. The school’s size, the heavy concentration of students from lower-income households, and the gap in available civil-rights data are all factors a family would want to explore further with school staff.
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