Harrison Park School vs Mt Tabor Middle School

Harrison Park School holds a slight edge in overall rating — 9.2/10 versus Mt Tabor Middle School's 9.0/10 — but the state rank gap is more telling: Harrison Park School sits at #28 of 1,226 Oregon schools while Mt Tabor Middle School ranks #51 of 1,226. Both land comfortably in the top 5% statewide, and separated by just 1.7 miles in Portland, the choice between them comes down to which specific strengths matter most to a family.

The academic scores diverge sharply: Mt Tabor Middle School leads at 9.4/10 versus Harrison Park School's 8.3/10 — a 1.1-point gap that reflects meaningfully higher tested proficiency levels. Growth scores, by contrast, are virtually identical — Harrison Park School at 9.8/10 and Mt Tabor Middle School at 9.7/10 — meaning both schools accelerate student learning at nearly the same rate regardless of where students start. Harrison Park School's lower academic score paired with near-perfect growth suggests it is closing gaps aggressively, not coasting on an advantaged incoming population.

The demographic profiles of the two schools look nothing alike. Harrison Park School's 64% free and reduced-price lunch rate versus Mt Tabor Middle School's 19% signals very different socioeconomic compositions. Harrison Park School also runs considerably smaller — 321 students compared to Mt Tabor Middle School's 504 — and its student-teacher ratio of 13.4:1 is notably tighter than Mt Tabor Middle School's 18.7:1. That five-student-per-teacher difference translates to meaningfully more individual attention per student at Harrison Park School.

Both schools serve grades 06–08, so the academic arc is identical in structure. The distinctions lie in scale and environment: Harrison Park School functions as a smaller, high-touch campus where educators are reaching a high-need population with exceptional growth results. Mt Tabor Middle School operates as a larger school with a more affluent enrollment and the highest academic proficiency score of the two, making tested-skills output its clearest competitive advantage.