The top reported proficiency rate is 19% in English language arts. The lowest is 9% in Math.
Original Research by School Decision on Ellen Ochoa Middle School
Ellen Ochoa Middle School serves students in grades six through eight as a regular public school within the Pasco School District. It sits in Pasco, one of the three Tri-Cities in southeastern Washington, a place whose character blends a historic agricultural and rail-yard core with rapid suburban expansion concentrated on the city’s west side. The school’s enrollment is large for a middle school, drawn from a community that is among the fastest-growing in the state, with new housing tracts, shopping centers, and continued annexation reshaping West Pasco in particular.
The student body is overwhelmingly Hispanic, and the vast majority of students qualify for free or reduced-price meals. These characteristics are central to understanding the peer environment and the school’s resource context, though state data on English learner and special education populations were not available in this profile. The surrounding housing market reflects a mid-sized metropolitan area: home values are below the state benchmark but have held relatively steady, while rents have ticked upward. Pasco’s economy is anchored by food processing, the Hanford nuclear site, BNSF Railway, and a growing retail and service sector, and the district itself has been responding to enrollment pressure with major construction.
Academically, the state assessment results from the 2024-25 school year show that in math, across all three tested grades, roughly one in eleven students met the proficiency standard. In English language arts, the share was closer to one in five, ranging from about fifteen percent in sixth grade to about twenty-two percent in seventh. In eighth-grade science, about sixteen percent of students were proficient. Only a single year of data is available here, so it is not possible to say whether these figures represent a change or a stable pattern. Compared with other districts in Franklin County, the school’s overall proficiency index sits in the bottom quartile — a position that families evaluating academic performance may want to explore further with the school and district, particularly around instructional supports and intervention programs.
No data on chronic absenteeism or discipline were reported for this school, and because it serves only middle grades, there is no graduation rate to report. The school’s website and program offerings were also not included in this profile, so the fuller picture of electives, extracurriculars, or specialized courses is absent.
The district context matters here. Pasco School District has been under pressure from rapid enrollment growth. Voters approved a bond measure in early 2023 that funded a third comprehensive high school, Sageview, which opened for the 2025-26 school year and directly relieves overcrowding at Chiawana High School, which had become the largest high school in Washington. That bond has implications for property taxes and school boundaries that families moving into West Pasco should note. The district also launched a Digital Learning Academy in 2023, consolidating online options, and purchased land near the new high school for a future elementary or middle school. A career and college center named Orion High School is planned to open in the same period. These developments signal that the district is actively investing in capacity and alternative pathways, but they also mean ongoing boundary adjustments and construction activity that will affect middle school attendance zones.
For a family considering Ellen Ochoa Middle School, the core academic picture is one of low proficiency rates on state assessments, set against a backdrop of a fast-growing, economically diverse community and a district that is expanding its physical infrastructure and programmatic offerings. The school serves a large, predominantly Latino student body with high economic need. Parents would likely want to ask about specific academic support structures for students who are below grade level, the availability of English learner services, and how the school’s offerings connect to the district’s newer high school and career pathways. The rapid growth of Pasco, particularly in West Pasco, means that the neighborhood around the school may change significantly in the coming years, and district expansion plans could alter school assignments over time.
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