Valley High School

Valley High School is a four-year high school of large scale in West Des Moines, Iowa, one of the schools within West Des Moines Comm School District, works with 2,178 students in grades 10 through 12. That puts it 365% above the typical public school in Iowa, which averages around 468 students.

Valley High School is one of 13 schools operated by West Des Moines Comm School District, a district that teaches 9,009 students overall.

On the student-mix side, Valley High School logs that the most-represented group is White (55%), with the rest of the student body spread across multiple groups. Beyond that, the school logs 20% Hispanic, 12% Black, 7% multiracial, 6% Asian. The wider county runs roughly 76% White, putting the school's mix meaningfully less White than the area baseline.

On the resource side, On paper, Valley High School has 119 full-time-equivalent teachers, translating to a class-load average of around 18.3:1. Statewide, the average ratio sits near 17.3:1, putting Valley High School higher than the state norm the norm. About 68% of enrolled students meet the income threshold for free or reduced-price lunch, which schools and policymakers use as a rough income-mix signal. That share is higher than Polk County's rate of about 49%.

On a residual basis (actual vs predicted given the student mix), Valley High School tracks the demographic baseline. The model predicts 57.9% given the school's FRL share; actual proficiency is 65.5%.

Zooming out to the county, ACS estimates for Polk County put the typical household earns roughly $83,576 per year, roughly 40% of adults have completed at least a four-year degree, and the poverty rate sits near 7%. In all, Polk County runs 137 public schools (combined enrollment of about 77,436 students), of which Valley High School is one.

Nearest neighbor: Western Hills Elementary School, around 0.7 miles off. 8 of the 8 nearest public schools sit inside a five-mile radius. Among the 9 schools in that immediate cluster with test data (this one included), Valley High School ranks 9th on composite proficiency, behind the local average of 76.0%.

Geographically, the school is in a high-density area.

Trend over the last 7 years. Over the past 7-year window, the student count grew 8%: 2,018 students in 2018 compared to 2,178 in 2025. The White share of enrollment decreased from 71% to 55% over that span. The student-to-teacher ratio widened from 17.2:1 in 2018 to 18.3:1 today.

In the discussion threads here, the feed for Valley High School typically covers science fair prep, picture-day reminders, and bus-route questions. Anyone with firsthand experience at this school can post or comment.