Washington Elementary School

Centralia, WA · Grades K–6

Centralia, WA

Neighborhood

Decoded Rank

All factors combined

Middle 40% decoded

#10 of 27

Centralia, WA schools

Performing as Expected

#597 in WA

Achievement Rank

Raw test performance

Top 30% achievement

#8 of 27

Centralia, WA schools

#914 in WA

places from achievement to Decoded Rank

Raw achievement and decoded performance are both close to expected for this school's context.

Data confidence:High343 students tested 8 years97% participation

Confidence is computed from sample size, year coverage, and participation rate. Higher confidence means the rank shift is stable across years and not driven by a single small cohort.

  • Tested students: total students with valid scores across all reported years.
  • Years of data: number of school years included. More years smooths year-to-year noise.
  • Participation: share of enrolled students who took the assessment. Low participation can bias scores.

What's driving this rank

Decoded Rank: #10 of 27

in Centralia, WA schools

Each component below is scored on a 0–100 within-metro scale. A qualitative band summarizes where the school lands.

  • StrongPerforms above what its context predictsCounts for 35% of the rank

    After accounting for income and demographics, does this school beat what the data would predict?

  • About averageStudents gain ground year over yearCounts for 30% of the rank

    Are kids at this school learning faster than typical for the metro?

  • LowEquity within the schoolCounts for 15% of the rank

    Are students clustered at similar levels, or split between top and bottom?

  • StrongDirection over recent yearsCounts for 10% of the rank

    Is this school's Decoded Rank trending up or down across the years we have data for?

  • StrongMost students were testedCounts for 10% of the rank

    Was the rank computed against a representative share of the school's students?

Show the numbersFor the methodology-curious

Each component is converted to a 0–100 within-metro percentile (100 = top of the metro). "Contribution" is the percentile-points the component adds to (or subtracts from) the metro median before the schools are re-ranked into the composite.

Per-component contributions to this school's Decoded Rank composite. Weight is the share each component carries; percentile is the school's within-metro score on that component.
ComponentWeightPercentileContribution
Performs above what its context predicts 35%89+13.6
Students gain ground year over year 30%41-2.8
Equity within the school 15%7-6.4
Direction over recent years 10%100+5.0
Most students were tested 10%97+4.7

How the Decoded Rank composite is computed

Why trust this?
  • Public data sources
  • Context-adjusted model
  • Confidence shown
  • Methodology published

This score uses state assessment data, NCES enrollment data, and Census ACS 5-year neighborhood data. The Decoded Rank adjusts for school context — student demographics, ELL/SPED service rates, and the socioeconomic profile of the surrounding tract — and shows how the school performs relative to expectation, not in absolute terms.

SchoolDecoder is one signal, not a verdict. Decoded Rank is a context-adjusted residual, not a causal claim about teaching quality. See full methodology →

All Rankings

How this school ranks across the metro, state, and among demographic peers.

ScopeAchievementDecodedShift
Centralia, WA (27 schools)#8#10
WA (1506 schools)#914#597
Among similar schools (6 peers)#1#1

Resource context

School inputs, not ranking points

These fields describe the school and surrounding neighborhood. They help readers interpret the page, but this is not a dollar-by-dollar or ratio-by-ratio scorecard and the fields here are not components of the Decoded Rank.

Enrollment
294
Free/reduced-price lunch
77.6%
Student-teacher ratio
16.3:1
Locale
Town, distant
School type
Regular public school
Enrollment model
Neighborhood attendance area
Neighborhood median income
$67,292ACS tract proxy
Neighborhood poverty
0.1%ACS tract proxy
SES index
23.2
Assessment data year
2025
CCD year
2024
ACS vintage
2020-2024

Within Centralia School District: #1 of 6.Top quintile in district. View district

Performance Spread

How students are distributed across the four state-assessment proficiency levels — L1: below standard, L2: approaching, L3: meets (proficient), L4: exceeds. This describes the shape of results at the school, not their height.

Students at this school are broadly spread across proficiency levels.

  • Level 1 — Below standard34%
  • Level 2 — Approaching standard22%
  • Level 3 — Meets standard (proficient)25%
  • Level 4 — Exceeds standard18%

Performance Spread measures how evenly students are distributed across the L1..L4 proficiency ladder, treating the levels as an ordered scale (L1=1, L2=2, L3=3, L4=4) and weighting each by its student share. A school where most students cluster at one level has a TIGHT spread; a school split between the bottom and top has a WIDE or BIMODAL spread. Bimodal fires only when BOTH tails are non-trivial AND the middle is relatively hollow (pct_L1 ≥ 15, pct_L4 ≥ 25, pct_L2 + pct_L3 ≤ 60). It describes shape — NOT how high the school's scores are. Methodology

Nearby Schools

Sorted by distance. Both rank columns shown so you can compare quickly.

SchoolAchievementDecodedShiftStoryConfidence
Jefferson Lincoln Elementary#27#27High
Edison Elementary#15#14High
Futurus High School Rankings coming soon.
Centralia School District SpEd Pre-school Rankings coming soon.
Centralia Middle School#23#16High

Similar Schools

Schools with comparable demographics, income, and size. Both rank columns shown for direct comparison.

SchoolAchievementDecodedShiftStoryConfidence
Warden High School Rankings coming soon.
Dishman Hills High School Rankings coming soon.
Richland School District Early Learning Center Rankings coming soon.
Grant Elementary#110#120High
Edison Elementary#15#14High

Historical Ranks

Year-by-year decoded and achievement ranks. Pandemic-affected years are excluded — we don't interpolate scores across the gap.

YearAchievementDecodedShift
2025#8#10
2024#9#8
2023#20#19

Note: assessment transitions (where a state changes its test) are footnoted on the methodology page; trends are not computed across breakpoints.

Trajectory

2023: percentile 332024: percentile 702025: percentile 89

Trending up

Based on 3 years (2023–2025).

Slope: +27.8 pct/yr (95% CI -40.1 to 95.7)

Low confidence

How this works: we fit a linear trend across the available years of Decoded percentile, then bucket the slope into a direction. Wide confidence intervals (uncertain trends) collapse to Holding steady. See the methodology page for thresholds.

Cohort Progression

Kids who started 4th grade here in 2016 lost 3 proficiency points by 6th grade — declining about 2× faster than the metro median.

Cohort-to-cohort variance is high — interpret the headline cautiously.

Learning rate: -2.5 proficiency points/yr (95% CI -12.0 to 7.1)

Medium confidence

Cohort 20152016201720182019202320242025 Slope
ELA · started 6th in 2015
G6
220
ELA · started 5th in 2015
G5
229
G6
254
+24.5
ELA · started 4th in 2015
G4
227
G5
242
G6
232
+2.8
ELA · started 3rd in 2015
G3
G4
236
G5
249
G6
233
-1.6
ELA · started 3rd in 2016
G3
G4
230
G5
248
G6
238
+4.1
ELA · started 4th in 2018
G4
232
G5
240
+8.1
ELA · started 4th in 2019
G4
226
ELA · started 6th in 2023
G6
202
ELA · started 5th in 2023
G5
221
G6
214
-6.2
ELA · started 4th in 2023
G4
195
G5
228
G6
249
+27.2
ELA · started 3rd in 2023
G3
207
G4
230
G5
205
-1.2
ELA · started 3rd in 2024
G3
250
G4
184
-65.6
ELA · started 3rd in 2025
G3
239
Math · started 6th in 2015
G6
191
Math · started 5th in 2015
G5
207
G6
226
+19.7
Math · started 4th in 2015
G4
245
G5
225
G6
217
-14.1
Math · started 3rd in 2015
G3
G4
237
G5
223
G6
230
-3.1
Math · started 3rd in 2016
G3
G4
240
G5
224
G6
217
-11.8
Math · started 4th in 2018
G4
248
G5
237
-10.6
Math · started 4th in 2019
G4
230
Math · started 6th in 2023
G6
182
Math · started 5th in 2023
G5
190
G6
193
+2.9
Math · started 4th in 2023
G4
207
G5
228
G6
225
+9.1
Math · started 3rd in 2023
G3
241
G4
233
G5
215
-13.2
Math · started 3rd in 2024
G3
228
G4
231
+3.1
Math · started 3rd in 2025
G3
238

How this works: we follow each grade-cohort across years through the school (3rd graders in 2023 are 4th graders in 2024, etc.) and fit a linear slope on a 100–400 proficiency-points scale built from the state assessment's four levels (L1=1, L2=2, L3=3, L4=4, weighted by student share). This is the same construction Stanford SEDA uses (edopportunity.org/methods); it's not student-level tracking — we measure the school's cohort, not individuals. See the methodology page for thresholds.

Evidence & technical detailClick to expand

School Alpha

School Alpha is the residual between actual and expected performance once school context is held constant. It is a context-adjusted estimate, not a causal claim about teaching quality.

Shrunk Alpha (95% CI)
+0.29 (95% CI: +0.22 to +0.35)

SES index components

SES method
Blended SES index (ACS + FRL)
SES index value
23.2
FRL %
77.6%
ELL %
SPED %
Tract median income (ACS 5-year)
$67,292
Tract poverty rate
0.1%
Tract % bachelor's+
17.3%

What "Decoded Rank" means

Decoded Rank converts School Alpha — the context-adjusted residual — into a parent-facing rank within the metro pool. A higher Decoded Rank than Achievement Rank means the school's raw scores understate its performance once neighborhood and school context are held constant. The reverse means raw scores overstate it. The rank is one signal, not a verdict.

Data & sources

Assessment data
2024–25 school year
NCES CCD vintage
2024
Census ACS 5-year vintage
2020-2024
Last updated
May 29, 2026
Methodology version
0.2.0

SchoolDecoder publishes context-adjusted residuals, not causal estimates. Decoded Rank is one signal — not a verdict on teaching quality. Read about limitations →