5 Highly Rated Schools in Portland, Oregon

A deciding factor for many people when purchasing a home is the quality of schools in the area. In fact, school rankings strongly impact home values, and buyers have reported compromising on certain “must haves” when picking their next home, just to ensure their kids can attend the best schools possible.

Portland has many highly ranked schools, and we’ve included some of them in our Top 10 Portland Neighborhood 2022 Report.

How can you find information on Portland Schools?

The internet is full of information, which can make it hard to sort out legitimate and helpful content. There are two often trusted sites for school rankings: Greatschools.org and the Oregon Department of Education, specifically the latter’s “At-A-Glance School and District Profiles.”

Greatschools is an independent non-profit organization with a mission to help parents provide the best possible educations for their kids. Their methods and criteria to provide the most accurate information are always evolving, and rather than focus only on test scores, they also collect data on a variety of other data points. They look at student progress over the course of a school year, college readiness ratings for high schools, and equity ratings to let parents know which schools are doing well when it comes to the development of disadvantaged kids, and more. While they’re not the last word on school rankings, they’re an excellent resource when you’re trying to sort out all the facets that go into finding a new home. Learn more about how greatschools.com acquires and assess data for school rankings.

Every year, the Oregon Department of Education publicizes their At-A-Glance School and District Profiles. These are a report card, of sorts, offering details about demographics, graduation rates, and more, like how long the principal has been at the school and whether the school employs teaching assistants, for example. Distance learning in response to COVID changed the reports in the past couple of years, but they’re still a good way to assess schools’ performances.

Top 5 Highly-Rated Schools in Portland

There’s a lot of information given by these two sources to help you determine what school is best for your family. Teacher retention, student-teacher ratios, test scores, and a lot more. Below are five schools that rated high on these two sources, the data below is taken from their sites.

Winterhaven School

  • Location: Southeast Portland in Brooklyn neighborhood
  • Grade Levels Served: K-8
  • Number of Students: 288
  • Student to Teacher Ratio: 18:1
  • GreatSchools Ranking: 10
  • ODE Profile: 93% teacher retention, same principal for at least 3 years

Skyline School

  • Location: Northwest Portland in Forest Park neighborhood
  • Grade Levels Served: K-8
  • Number of Students: 192
  • Student to Teacher Ratio: 14:1
  • GreatSchools Ranking: 10
  • ODE Profile: 85% teacher retention

Ainsworth Elementary School

  • Location: Southwest Portland in Goose Hollow neighborhood
  • Grade Levels Served: K-5
  • Number of Students: 603
  • Student to Teacher Ratio: 19:1
  • GreatSchools Ranking: 9
  • ODE Profile: 91% teacher retention, same principal for at least 3 years

Duniway Elementary School

  • Location: Southeast Portland in Eastmoreland neighborhood
  • Number of Students: 450
  • Student to Teacher Ratio: 20:1
  • GreatSchools Ranking: 9
  • ODE Profile: 90% teacher retention, same principal for at least 3 years

Grant High School

  • Location: Northeast Portland in Grant Park neighborhood
  • Number of Students: 1,950
  • Student to Teacher Ratio: 21:1
  • GreatSchools Ranking: 9
  • ODE Profile: 88% teacher retention

Can Your Realtor Help you Find the Best Schools?

No. The Fair Housing Act prevents Realtors from “steering” clients toward a certain school district to prevent discrimination. So, it’s important for buyers to gather the best information about schools in the areas they’re interested in. Realtors can only point you to sources of information.

Check out the great sources of school information at GreatSchools and the Oregon Department of Education’s report cards as well as the school map on Portlandmaps.com to find the school district of a home you’re considering.

When you’re ready to jump in, contact our top 1% buyer’s team! We’ve been helping people buy homes in the Portland metro area for 18 years. With our experience and knowledge of the area, we have no doubt we can help you find your dream home. Call us at 503-773-0000 or chat with the bot on our site. We look forward to working with you!

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April 29, 2022
AUTHOR

Stephen FitzMaurice

Stephen FitzMaurice, Realtor is a top 5% real estate agent in the U.S. A Principal Broker in Oregon, Managing Broker in Washington, he has been licensed since 2003 for residential real estate sales. Call his team in Oregon at 503-714-1111 or in Washington at 360-345-3833.

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