Hudtloff Middle School

Lakewood, WA · Grades 6–8

Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue, WA

Neighborhood

Decoded Rank

All factors combined

1 star

WA statewide rating — the rank below is this school's statewide position

Bottom 15% decoded

#1373 of 1502

plausibly #1262–1418

Washington schools

#613 · Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue metro

Achievement Rank

Raw test performance

Bottom 15% achievement

#1454 of 1502

Washington schools

#662 · Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue metro

places from achievement to Decoded Rank

Scores look modest, and the school performs below what its context predicts.

Data confidence:High1110 students tested 8 years96% 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: #1373 of 1502

in Washington schools

Raw test scores rank this school #1454, but after accounting for context, students here outperform what the data would predict. The Decoded Rank places it at #1373.

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

  • LowPerforms above what its context predictsCounts for 39% of the rank

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

  • LowStudents gain ground year over yearCounts for 33% of the rank

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

  • About averageEquity within the schoolCounts for 17% of the rank

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

  • StrongMost students were testedCounts for 11% 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 39%9-16.1
Students gain ground year over year 33%16-11.2
Equity within the school 17%59+1.5
Most students were tested 11%96+5.1

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 →

Strongest Subjects (Decoded)

Decoded rank first; achievement rank in parentheses. Sorted by decoded rank, best first. Science is shown for reference only and is not part of any rank, tier, or composite.

  1. Science

    2024 proficiency18.2%meeting standard

    Tested gradeGrade 8

    187 tested

    202216.4%202317.9%202418.2%

    Shown for reference only — science is not part of any rank.

All Rankings

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

ScopeAchievementDecodedShift
WA (1502 schools)#1454#1373
Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue, WA (677 schools)#662#613
Among similar schools (6 peers)#5#4

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
586
Free/reduced-price lunch
76.3%
Student-teacher ratio
16.3:1
Locale
City, small
School type
Regular public school
Enrollment model
Neighborhood attendance area
Neighborhood median income
$60,655ACS tract proxy
Neighborhood poverty
12.2%ACS tract proxy
SES index
27.0
Assessment data year
2024
CCD year
2023
ACS vintage
2020-2024

Within Clover Park School District: #18 of 20.Bottom 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 cluster closely on the proficiency ladder.

  • Level 1 — Below standard57%
  • Level 2 — Approaching standard25%
  • Level 3 — Meets standard (proficient)15%
  • Level 4 — Exceeds standard3%

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.

SchoolRatingAchievementDecodedShiftStoryConfidence
Custer Elementary School#592#382Medium
Oakbrook Elementary School#432#437High
Oakridge Group HomeRankings coming soon
Dower Elementary School#581#553High
FirwoodRanking unavailable

Similar Schools

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

SchoolRatingAchievementDecodedShiftStoryConfidence
Foss High School#105#100HSHS outcomeHS pool
Stewart Middle School#636#639High
Garrison Middle School#10#5Medium
Baker Middle School#575#340High
Sunset Elementary#121#107High

Historical Ranks

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

YearAchievementDecodedShift
2024#662#613
2023#633#579

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

Trajectory

Not used in the Decoded Rank — shown for context only.

2023: percentile 132024: percentile 9

Trending down

Based on 2 years (2023–2024).

Slope: -3.7 pct/yr (no CI — too few years)

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 7th grade here in 2022 gained 4 proficiency points by 8th grade — gaining, versus a metro median of about 0/yr.

Based on 16 cohorts across math + ELA.

Learning rate: +3.5 proficiency points/yr (95% CI -0.5 to 7.4)

Cohort 20152016201720182019202220232024 Slope
ELA · started 8th in 2015
G8
266
—
ELA · started 7th in 2015
G7
254
G8
272
+17.6
ELA · started 6th in 2015
G6
250
G7
255
G8
261
+5.5
ELA · started 6th in 2016
G6
225
G7
250
G8
250
+12.1
ELA · started 6th in 2017
G6
256
G7
247
G8
252
-1.9
ELA · started 6th in 2018
G6
231
G7
239
+8.6
ELA · started 6th in 2019
G6
242
—
ELA · started 8th in 2022
G8
196
—
ELA · started 7th in 2022
G7
204
G8
209
+4.4
ELA · started 6th in 2022
G6
181
G7
197
G8
174
-3.4
ELA · started 6th in 2023
G6
182
G7
174
-7.8
ELA · started 6th in 2024
G6
188
—
Math · started 8th in 2015
G8
277
—
Math · started 7th in 2015
G7
266
G8
273
+8.0
Math · started 6th in 2015
G6
247
G7
259
G8
262
+7.7
Math · started 6th in 2016
G6
234
G7
244
G8
260
+13.2
Math · started 6th in 2017
G6
250
G7
233
G8
249
-0.2
Math · started 6th in 2018
G6
215
G7
216
+0.6
Math · started 6th in 2019
G6
210
—
Math · started 8th in 2022
G8
161
—
Math · started 7th in 2022
G7
170
G8
169
-0.7
Math · started 6th in 2022
G6
158
G7
157
G8
138
-10.3
Math · started 6th in 2023
G6
159
G7
153
-6.0
Math · started 6th in 2024
G6
168
—

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. Its reliability shows up on the page as the confidence label and the rank interval, not as a standalone statistic.

SES index components

SES method
Blended SES index (ACS + FRL)
SES index value
27.0
FRL %
76.3%
ELL %
17.7% · WA OSPI Report Card Enrollment
SPED %
19.3% · WA OSPI Report Card Enrollment
Tract median income (ACS 5-year)
$60,655
Tract poverty rate
12.2%
Tract % bachelor's+
28.1%

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
2023–24 school year
NCES CCD vintage
2023
Census ACS 5-year vintage
2020-2024
Last updated
September 4, 2026
Methodology version
0.14.0
Source files (3)

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