Houck Middle School

Houck Middle School operates as a large middle-grades school in Salem, Oregon, one of the schools within Salem-Keizer SD 24J. Current enrollment sits at 830 students spanning grades 6 through 8. Enrollment runs roughly 68% bigger than the state mean of about 494.

Salem-Keizer SD 24J runs 65 schools in total, collectively educating 37,776 students. Houck Middle School is one of those campuses.

Looking at the student body, Houck Middle School lists that Hispanic students make up the majority at 71%. Other groups include 17% White, 4% Pacific Islander, 4% multiracial, 2% Asian. By comparison, Marion County as a whole is about 29% Hispanic, so the school skews meaningfully more Hispanic than its surroundings.

On the resource side, Houck Middle School shows 37 full-time-equivalent teachers, putting the student-to-teacher ratio at about 22.6:1. The state averages around 19.3:1, so this campus is higher than the state norm typical. Around 89% of the student body qualifies for free or reduced-price meals, a commonly cited indicator of low-income enrollment.

Adjusting for the school's free-and-reduced-lunch share, On a poverty-adjusted basis, Houck Middle School sits in the bottom 10% statewide. Predicted proficiency from the FRL regression is roughly 28.0%; actual is 12.1%, a gap of -15.9 points.

In the surrounding community, Marion County reports that median household income runs about $77,351, 26% of adults hold a bachelor's degree or higher, and the poverty rate sits near 9%. Across Marion County's 111 public schools (combined enrollment of about 53,799 students), Houck Middle School is one campus in the mix.

Miller Elementary School is the nearest neighboring public school, about 0.4 miles from this campus. 8 of the 8 nearest public schools sit inside a five-mile radius. Among the 8 schools in that immediate cluster with test data (this one included), Houck Middle School ranks 3rd on composite proficiency, behind the local average of 13.3%.

The school occupies an inner-city site.

Trend over the last 7 years. Looking back 7 years, enrollment at Houck Middle School has declined 22%, going from 1,061 students in 2018 to 830 in 2025. White enrollment moved from 29% to 17% across the same window.

In the discussion threads here, posts here usually surface around classroom updates, athletics, and weather closures. Members of the school community can share what they know.