Best Public Middle Schools in Spokane
Spokane County's middle-school landscape is dominated by four districts: Spokane Public Schools (the urban core district), Central Valley (the suburban district covering Spokane Valley and Liberty Lake), Mead (the north-county district based in Colbert), and the smaller West Valley School District (a separate entity from the Yakima district of the same name). Unlike the Puget Sound rankings, where King County clusters dominate, the top of the Spokane middle-school list is split fairly evenly among these four districts — a more pluralistic regional pattern.
Horizon Middle School in Spokane Valley (Central Valley district) leads the list at 64 percent proficient averaged across math and ELA, with 58 percent of students meeting the math standard and 71 percent the ELA standard. Sacajawea Middle School in Spokane's South Hill neighborhood, a Spokane Public Schools comprehensive of about 850 students, is second at 62 percent, and Carla Peperzak Middle in Spokane Public Schools, the district's newest middle school, opened in 2021 and named for the Dutch Holocaust resistance worker who later settled in Spokane, is third at 57 percent. Evergreen Middle, also Central Valley, is fourth, and Highland Middle in the Mead district is fifth.
Greenacres Middle and Selkirk Middle, both Central Valley schools serving the eastern Spokane Valley and Liberty Lake, take sixth and seventh. West Valley City School at eighth is a small choice middle school of about 200 students in the West Valley (Spokane) district. Chase Middle in Spokane Public Schools and Northwood Middle in the Mead district close out the top ten.
A pattern worth noting: Central Valley School District places four schools in the top ten (Horizon, Evergreen, Greenacres, Selkirk), the largest concentration of any Spokane County district. Spokane Public Schools places three (Sacajawea, Carla Peperzak, Chase) and Mead places two (Highland, Northwood). Proficiency at the top of this list, in the low 60s averaged across the two subjects, is well below the Eastside and Seattle leaders but represents the best of the inland Northwest's urban regions.
A note on scope: this ranking covers public middle schools whose attendance area is in Spokane County, ordered by Smarter Balanced math and ELA proficiency averages from OSPI's most recent published Report Card. SAT, AP, and Polaris figures are unavailable at the middle-school level. Schools with fewer than thirty tested students are excluded for statistical stability. Charter and option schools are eligible if classified as public; private middle schools — Cataldo, Saint Aloysius, Saint Charles, All Saints, Saint Thomas More — appear in a separate ranking.
Ranked schools
- 001HORIZON MIDDLE SCHOOLCENTRAL VALLEY SCHOOL DISTRICT · SPOKANE64%
- 002SACAJAWEA MIDDLE SCHOOLSPOKANE SCHOOL DISTRICT · SPOKANE62%
- 003CARLA PEPERZAK MIDDLE SCHOOLSPOKANE SCHOOL DISTRICT · SPOKANE57%
- 004EVERGREEN MIDDLE SCHOOLCENTRAL VALLEY SCHOOL DISTRICT · SPOKANE57%
- 005HIGHLAND MIDDLE SCHOOLMEAD SCHOOL DISTRICT · SPOKANE57%
- 006GREENACRES MIDDLE SCHOOLCENTRAL VALLEY SCHOOL DISTRICT · SPOKANE56%
- 007SELKIRK MIDDLE SCHOOLCENTRAL VALLEY SCHOOL DISTRICT · SPOKANE55%
- 008WEST VALLEY CITY SCHOOLWEST VALLEY SCHOOL DISTRICT (SPOKANE) · SPOKANE52%
- 009CHASE MIDDLE SCHOOLSPOKANE SCHOOL DISTRICT · SPOKANE47%
- 010NORTHWOOD MIDDLE SCHOOLMEAD SCHOOL DISTRICT · SPOKANE46%
- 011MOUNTAINSIDE MIDDLE SCHOOLMEAD SCHOOL DISTRICT · SPOKANE45%
- 012BOWDISH MIDDLE SCHOOLCENTRAL VALLEY SCHOOL DISTRICT · SPOKANE42%
- 013PAULINE FLETT MIDDLE SCHOOLSPOKANE SCHOOL DISTRICT · SPOKANE39%
- 014CENTENNIAL MIDDLE SCHOOLWEST VALLEY SCHOOL DISTRICT (SPOKANE) · SPOKANE36%
- 015NORTH PINES MIDDLE SCHOOLCENTRAL VALLEY SCHOOL DISTRICT · SPOKANE36%
- 016WESTWOOD MIDDLE SCHOOLCHENEY SCHOOL DISTRICT · SPOKANE34%
- 017EAST VALLEY MIDDLE SCHOOLEAST VALLEY SCHOOL DISTRICT (SPOKANE) · SPOKANE34%
- 018SALK MIDDLE SCHOOLSPOKANE SCHOOL DISTRICT · SPOKANE32%
- 019GLOVER MIDDLE SCHOOLSPOKANE SCHOOL DISTRICT · SPOKANE25%
- 020GARRY MIDDLE SCHOOLSPOKANE SCHOOL DISTRICT · SPOKANE22%
- 021DENNY YASUHARA MIDDLE SCHOOLSPOKANE SCHOOL DISTRICT · SPOKANE19%
- 022SHAW MIDDLE SCHOOLSPOKANE SCHOOL DISTRICT · SPOKANE18%
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